


In The Arms Of The Ocean [ON HOLD]

by WhyAreAllUsernamesTaken



Series: We either make it, or break it. [5]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: (that's a bit extreme though), Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Problematic behaviour and habits in regards to eating and weight present, Surprisingly Fluffy, contemporary dancers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 09:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21052031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyAreAllUsernamesTaken/pseuds/WhyAreAllUsernamesTaken
Summary: Where Minho is a dancer in a dance company for young adults and gets paired up with one of the lead dancers for a new contemporary piece.No biggy, right?But it so happens that it's Han Jisung, the company's favourite. That's not all bad but the boy seems to have the biggest ego ever.And with Minho's temper?Disaster.





	1. Fractured Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop writing and uploading new stories and focus on the ones I have already going.  
Whatever.
> 
> Florence + The Machine - Never Let Me Go

‘’From the top!,’’ the chorographer yelled over the piano, ‘’Pay attention to the toes people! I saw some of you slacking,’’

Minho heaved as he let his arms drop and turned back around to get to the starting position, _Again_.

For some reason, people just kept messing up today and that meant that their rehearsal had been going on for about three hours now instead of the scheduled two and they hadn’t even managed _one_ clean run-through yet.

Not that it was _that_ surprising. They had started practise for a new contemporary piece last week after the company had decided that they needed to switch things up for Christmas this year. It was a nice idea but it had been quite last minute.

All previous rehearsals had been put on halt until the choreographers and professors had completed working out the new piece and music.

To be honest, Minho didn’t quite understand the story yet – something with a sailor leaving his lover behind and never returning – but the theming seemed nice. It was way better than doing yet another modern take on the nutcracker.

The mirrors had fogged up ages ago and not even the air-conditioning could do anything about it. It was almost impossible with thirty dancers occupying the room.

Sweat was dripping into his eyes and his hair was basically drenched by now. Most guys looked like that but the girls seemed to be still pretty put together. It baffled him time after time how the females managed to get through hours and hours of gruelling practise without crumbling. 

It reminded him of his mother. That woman would always keep going no matter what obstacle she faced. She was probably the strongest person Minho knew and as he grew older, he figured it was just a woman-thing.

Women being weak?

That was the biggest bullshit Minho had ever heard and as he looked at the fire in the eyes of a few female dancers next to him, he could feel nothing else but respect.

Because he himself was ready to crawl home and some of his friends looked like they were about to throw hands and melt into the floor.

Minho got back to his place and he ran a hand through his sweaty hair, wincing as he felt another drop travel down his back before getting soaked up by his shirt. He really wanted a shower, especially when he remembered how his tight shorts stopped riding up because they were stuck to his thighs. He pitied everyone who had decided to wear full-length tights to practise today. Minho himself had been tempted with the cold temperatures outside but he had changed his mind last minute, which he was really grateful for now.

Someone bumped his side with an elbow and Minho looked to his left to see Hyunjin.

‘’I swear, if someone messes up one more time I’m going to cry,’’ the younger hissed, his eyes wearily trained on Mr. Park to see if the man was watching them.

Minho just hummed in agreeance and got into position. He could hear Hyunjin mumble some more and normally he would have found it funny but he was too tired to laugh. Don’t get him wrong; Mr. Park – or Park Jinyoung – was really nice but when he got irritated he didn’t hesitate to put you in your place. Chit-chatting during practise was one of the very few things he didn’t tolerate. 

Minho’s leg was starting to ache and it made his left knee weak. Which really made him feel like an old man even though he had just turned twenty-two, but that was expected after spending every waking moment making his body do things it wasn’t specifically made to do. The jumps were brutal this time around and even though he loved doing those, they put a real strain on his body. 

Then he remembered he was due for an appointment at the company’s physiotherapist. Winter always made things worse and more often than not he had to make sure to wear a special legwarmer over his knee to keep the cold from making the joint too stiff.

‘’We’re starting from the third part again,’’ Mr. Park bellowed and Minho let out a sigh as he sat down on his knees, curling himself up in a little ball just like all the other dancers.  
The piano started again and Minho counted the measures until he got to the fifth one and he unfolded himself slowly, tracing a circle on the floor as he lift his head up.

It was two hours later that Mr. Park had ended their practise, leaving a mass of sweaty bodies heaving for air and desperate for water as he walked out.

Minho was laying on his back with his eyes closed as he tried to get his lungs to stop burning. His body was heavy and he was happy that tomorrow was their only day off in the week and that he got some time to gear up for another week.

A set of hands wrapped around his knee and he didn’t even bother to open his eyes as the person massaged his leg, digging his fingers into the sore spots.

‘’Make sure to ice it when you get back. From what I can feel, your muscles are flaring up,’’ 

Minho let out a sigh and cracked one eye open and saw Woojin frowning, staring at his knee.

‘’I know I know,’’ Minho muttered under his breath before hissing loudly as Woojin hit a painful spot.

It was silent for a bit and from the look on Woojin’s face he could already tell that the guy wanted to do nothing more but scold him for not taking things more seriously. It’s not like he neglected it or something, but being so careful was sometimes really annoying. It was not like he could change the past and he had accepted that he would never get back to the level he was at before the incident but sometimes he did feel bitter about it.

That often resulted in him ignoring the fact that his knee was a bit less functional than what was ideal and he would push himself more than he should. And now that winter had set in and the stress of having to master a whole new choreography in less than a month was more than enough to keep his mind occupied. Hence him forgetting that he was supposed to make an appointment with the physiotherapist two months ago.

‘’I really don’t want to say this again but…,’’ Woojin carefully started.

Minho sat up and looked Woojin dead in the eye, hoping his silent threat was enough for the guy to stop where he had been going. He was not in the mood to argue with Woojin _again_.

‘’I get it. You know I’m just worried so don’t go around acting like I’m the bad guy here,’’

‘’Of course you aren’t,’’ Minho replied sincerely before he lay back down again.

Woojin had already been part of the company, three years ago, when Minho had joined. When was still one of the main dancers. _The_ main dancer, actually. Woojin had been there to see him climb up and reach that spot and even though Minho was younger, Woojin had been nothing but supportive. It was all thanks to Woojin that he managed to get so far.

Minho had been great on a technical aspect but everyone would always comment on the lack of genuine _feelings_ in his moves. It had taken countless of nights sneaking back into the company after the last round of lessons, bribing Woojin with chicken and multiple breakdowns for him to finally get it. And after months and months his hard work had payed off and he had been promoted. Credits to Woojin, really.

So Woojin wasn’t the bad guy. He was simply the messenger. The real bad guy was someone completely different, someone he and his mom fortunately didn’t have to see ever again. Hopefully.

‘’Sup bitches,’’

Minho rolled his eyes as Hyunjin sat down next to Woojin, a huge bottle of water in his hands.

‘’How come you look like you just woke up from a nice nap?,’’ Minho shot at his friend, truly frustrated that Hyunjin always looked good no matter what. It was really unfair.

Hyunjin just laughed before downing the contents of his bottle in one go. Woojin didn’t even seem to be interested and just continued to dig into Minho’s knee.

Hyunjin was one of the people who had entered the company after Minho. If he remembered correctly, Hyunjin had done a completely self-choreographed dance and it had impressed the board members. Minho saw him doing the same choreography at a company camping-trip a few weeks later – the boy a bit drunk and he had been egged on to do an impromptu performance on one of the picknick benches around the campfire – and he understood why Hyunjin had been placed in his group.

The guy was graceful but possessed a great amount of strength. Whenever Hyunjin danced, Minho couldn’t help but feel drawn in. In conclusion, he was different than Minho.

They had somehow drifted to each other and Minho couldn’t name how they had actually ended up being friends, but it had just happened.

‘’You are just jealous of my good looks,’’ Hyunjin teased as he wiggled his brows.

Minho was about to comment on that but he halted as he suddenly saw a shadow on his left. From the looks on Hyunjin and Woojin’s faces he could already guess who it was.

‘’Get up,’’ the boy said softly, his foot probing Minho’s side.

Minho rolled his head to his left and was met by squirrel-boy staring down at him, his face set in annoyance. That always managed to irritate Minho.

It wasn’t as if he hated the guy or anything, but he had this air of arrogance about him that just irked Minho. Not that it was _that_ bad, but the guy knew he was everyone’s favourite and the fact that his dad used to be one of the company’s best dancers just made it seem like the guy just had the right connections and had played them right to get the spot he had now while the rest had worked their asses off to even get accepted.

But that wasn’t really fair either.

He knew how hard the boy worked to keep his position as the main dancer. Countless of times, Minho had finished individual practise late at night and walked down the halls to go home, only to find the boy locked up in one of the smaller rooms hidden away at the back of the building, music blasting through the speakers.

‘’And why should I?,’’ Minho replied, ignoring the sighs from his friends.

They were probably tired of him arguing with the boy but it just seemed to come naturally. Minho wasn’t a mean person and neither was he really bitter about the fact that the boy had taken over his spot while he was out of the running, but he _did_ think it was funny how the boy’s ears would turn red from withholding his anger whenever Minho pushed his buttons. 

Minho could see the boy’s hands curl into fists next to his sides and he had to suppress a little chuckle from escaping his lips.

‘’Because I have to close this place up and I really want to go home,’’ the boy hissed back and Minho noticed his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

‘’So? I don’t feel like getting up and-,’’

‘’Sorry Jisung,’’ Woojin intercepted as he got up, ‘’We didn’t know,’’

Jisung deflated as he looked at Woojin and Minho scoffed as the boy smiled at the oldest.

‘’Thank you hyung,’’ Jisung replied before walking back to where he came from.

Maybe Minho felt a little sad that he hadn’t managed to rile the boy up a bit more but he wasn’t going to say that to his friends. Not when Woojin actually got along with Jisung and was way too nice to _not_ start another speech about giving Jisung a chance.

Minho deemed having a civil conversation with Jisung impossible. He had actually tried before. It had been when it was just the two of them left at the company at night. Minho had decided to just barge into the room Jisung was practising in and he had apologised – for nothing in particular - after the boy had noticed him. 

Jisung had stared at him like he had grown a pair of horns, especially after Minho had decided to fill the awkward silence with informing the boy that he looked like a squirrel.

From there on, he had seen the boy turn around fast enough to throw him off-balance before he had hastily gathered his stuff. Minho had been confused at the reaction and he tried to ask what was up but then Jisung looked like a deer caught in the headlights when Minho had landed a hand on his shoulder and had ran out. Literally.

After that ordeal, Jisung had been ever snarkier and Minho had stopped trying. So he could proudly say that it wasn’t his fault that they didn’t get along. He had tried to be an adult and thinking they could talk things out but Jisung apparently had thought differently. 

‘’Earth to Minho,’’

He snapped his head to the right and saw Woojin and Hyunjin standing next to him, their bags slung around their shoulders and ready to go.

‘’If you don’t get up you’ll get locked in here,’’ Hyunjin pointed out, ‘’I’m sure Jisung would do something like that,’’

That earned him a slap on the back of his head from Woojin, ‘’Don’t be so mean. Jisung wouldn’t do that. He’s a nice kid,’’

Hyunjin scoffed, ‘’I find that hard to believe,’’

Woojin ignored Hyunjin and held out his hand to Minho to drag him to his feet. Minho was grateful for the assistance because it really felt like his limbs had turned into jello by now. He took a quick look around and saw that everyone else had already left the room. Jisung was sitting on the floor at the wall and was going through his phone, glancing up as soon as Minho zipped his bag.

Their eyes met and even though Minho had expected Jisung to glare at him, he didn’t. It threw Minho off for a bit when he saw the boy’s eyes widen a bit more, not looking away. 

‘’You got something to say?,’’ Minho inquired, tilting his head in confusion.

Jisung’s mouth formed a line and he shook his head before he hastily looked down at his phone again, his hair covering almost his whole face. It was almost as if he was trying to hide.

‘’Weirdo,’’ Minho huffed out as he swung his bag over his shoulder before walking over to Woojin and Hyunjin, the latter looping his arm around Minho’s before they made their way out of the room.

‘’So, I was thinking,’’ Hyunjin started off as he rolled over on Woojin’s bed, ending up on his side, ‘’We could go to Chan’s party next weekend?,’’

Chan?

Who the fuck was Chan?

Hyunjin seemed to catch his confusion and he let out a dramatic gasp as he pointed at Minho, ‘’You don’t know who Chan is?!,’’

‘’Well, sorry I don’t know _everyone_,’’ Minho hissed back as he stopped spinning around on the chair at Woojin’s desk.

It was Sunday evening and after spending the day by themselves, Woojin had asked if Minho and Hyunjin wanted to stop by his apartment and eat diner together and maybe watch a movie afterwards. Minho was a decent cook but the dorm room provided by the company was sometimes too stuffy so he had gladly accepted Woojin’s offer. Even if it meant he was probably going to be eating chicken for the third time that week.

Woojin’s place was nice. He had actually managed to rent a decent-sized apartment just a few blocks away from the company. Minho would've loved it to have a place like that for himself but unfortunately, his monthly pay went straight to his huge hospital bills from two years ago and all the appointments at the physiotherapist that followed after that. Insurance did cover some of it, but it was still too little.

‘’But how in heavens name is it possible that you don’t even know the name of one of the producers of the company? Like, really? The guy composes just about everything you dance to…,’’

Oh.

_That_ Chan.

Minho had heard of him before but he had no clue about what the guy looked like. From the rumours that travelled around the company, Bang Chan was secretly a vampire and only came out at night. So how Hyunjin had caught wind of a party, he didn’t know.

‘’What party?,’’ Woojin asked as he walked into the bedroom with his arms full of snacks and drinks.

Minho – being the good friend he was – shot up from the chair and jogged over to Woojin to help him get some things off his hands. Woojin shot him a little smile and muttered a soft ‘thanks’ before he set the rest of the food down on the little table next to his bed.

‘’Chan’s party, but you probably don’t want to go do you?,’’ Hyunjin grimaced.

Minho furrowed his brows and wondered why Hyunjin thought Woojin didn’t want to go. Sure, Woojin wasn’t much of a party guy but that didn’t mean that he didn’t go out every once in a while.

Woojin laughed and shook his head, ‘’It’s fine Hyunjin. Chris and I are cool,’’

‘’I’m confused,’’ Minho deadpanned.

Hyunjin and Woojin turned to him and looked at him with an expression that just screamed _‘are you kidding?_ and it was only after Hyunjin facepalmed himself that Minho made the connection.

‘’Oooooooooh,’’ Minho replied, ‘’Chan is Chris. _The_ Chris. Sorry, I forgot,’’

Hyunjin let out a weird sound and flopped back on the bed, waving his arms about as he muttered something to himself. Woojin looked amused and Minho saw no sign of discomfort at all and he was happy about that.

‘’Just because he’s my ex doesn’t mean we hate each other. We’re not little kids and we still meet up every now and then,’’ Woojin said as he sat himself down on the floor, ‘’So if there’s a party, I’m going,’’

From what Minho could remember, Woojin had dated Chris - or Chan - for a couple of months before they had broken it off. Woojin had told them that the breakup had been mutual and that they thought they would be better off as friends.

Of course Woojin had been a bit upset about it but they had come to the conclusion it was more about not having a special someone than actually Chan so it had all been good after about a week or two.

‘’So, we are going then?,’’ Hyunjin asked.

‘’Sure,’’ Minho replied.

Hyunjin and Woojin hummed right at the moment all their phones beeped, informing them that they had gotten a text. Minho pulled out his phone just like the other two and he unlocked his phone. He saw that it was Mr. Park and he hurriedly opened the text.

_Emergency meeting for all dancers who are part of ‘’Ocean Arms’’. Everyone is scheduled to meet in room C at 08:30 tomorrow morning. We expect everyone to be present. Anyone who isn’t without a legitimate reason will get a warning._  
Mr. Park,  
Head Choreographer 

Minho looked up from his phone, ‘’Guess there’s a problem?,’’

Woojin ran his hand over his face before throwing his phone on the bed.

‘’I hope not,‘’ Hyunjin sighed, his eyes still trained on his phone ‘’If they made another change I’m literally going to boycott the whole thing,’’

‘’You wouldn’t,’’ Minho replied.

There was no sassy comeback from Hyunjin and Minho swore he could see the corners of his mouth curl up ever so slightly as his eyes danced over the screen.

‘’As soon as you’re done with swooning over the fact that you got a mass-text from Mr. Park, could you move over so we can watch this movie?,’’ Minho teased.

‘’W-what are you saying?! I’m not _swooning_,’’ Hyunjin yelled back, his face notably redder than before.

Minho wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t difficult to tell that Hyunjin maybe had a teeny-tiny crush on the married man and it served as great entertainment for Minho.

‘’Sure Jinnie. We all know how he is your role-model and all. I mean, you know all his choreographies by heart, even those he made when he wasn’t even teaching at our company,’’ Woojin added with a low chuckle.

Hyunjin literally screeched like some pre-historic animal, ‘’Stop you assholes!,’’

Minho and Woojin laughed loudly and Hyunjin spluttered so more before he moved over and patted the bed, ‘’Shut up and let’s go watch this stupid movie,’’

The following morning, Minho woke up to the sound of his alarm blaring and he had to suppress the urge to throw the device to the wall like every morning. With a loud grunt, Minho heaved his body up and reached out for his phone on the little table next to his bed, squinting at the brightness of his screen as he turned off the alarm.

It was still pitch black outside but what else did he expect at seven in the morning. Whoever thought it was a good idea to demand all dancers to meet up so early in the morning was probably one of those people who went to bed at ten in the evening and naturally woke up at some ungodly hour.

Minho literally rolled out of bed and he landed on his back. It was a stupid thing to do because his bed was a bit too high to do that but at least it woke him up. Well, for as far as he could. To be honest, he wanted to do nothing more but crawl back under the warm blankets and drift back to sleep but he couldn’t and that pissed him off. So to the shower it was.

By the time he had gotten out and dressed, he saw that he only had fifteen minutes left to pack his stuff for the day and eat breakfast. For some reason, time always went by faster when he was in the shower and that was not good.

Somehow he managed to finish his morning-routine with three whole minutes to spare.

He had just finished wrapping himself up in heavy winter gear when his phone run. He didn’t even bother to check who was calling as he stepped into his shoes and accepted the call.

_‘’Good fucking morning,’’_ Hyunjin grumbled.

‘’Sound like you are just as excited about this early-morning-meetup as I am,’’ Minho responded as he shut the door behind him before making his way to the stairs.

_‘’Funny,’’_ Hyunjin deadpanned.

‘’Very,’’

_‘’Now that we've established you have a wonderful sense of humour, I wanted to ask if you want the usual? Woojin is coming to pick me up and we’re stopping by the café,’’_

Hyunjin could be quite the bitch, but the boy would never fail to buy Minho coffee almost every morning.

‘’That would be awesome, thanks Hyunjin,’’

He could hear Hyunjin yawn and he had to keep himself from copying the boy.

_‘’Sure thing. See you in a bit,’’_

The line went dead and Minho smiled as he stuffed his phone back in his pocket. He was truly grateful for the call even though it was nothing special. It made him a tad bit less grumpy about having to waddle through the snow in the early morning.

To be fair, he didn’t hate the walk to the company all that much. Early mornings were peaceful and it made the world seem a bit less hectic. Not that Minho minded the buzzle of the city but he did enjoy starting his day by himself without having to worry about bumping into giggling students or tired businessmen or people taking their dog for their morning walk.

It was just him, the snow and the slowly rising sun.

A full five minutes later the familiar building came into sight and Minho hastened his pace to get inside as quickly as possible and let his body thaw from the cold.  
The building was unlocked but from the looks of it, Minho was one of the first people to arrive. Only the most necessary lights were on and the lobby was completely empty. 

He let the door slip closed behind him as he stomped his feet on the big mat inside, ridding his shoes of the snow that had accumulated. It was almost unbearably warm inside but Minho blamed it on his own half-frozen skin that made it feel like he was suddenly on fire.

After he deemed himself not every concierge’s walking nightmare anymore, he made his way down the long hall on his left and turned on the lights as he passed them. It was almost a ritual at this point and even though he sometimes tried to pass the lights without turning them on, he would always stop and turn back to do so.

It wasn’t his job – of course not – but he was always one of the first people to arrive because of how close to the company he lived and so it had become a habit. People knew that and sometimes called him Tinkerbell. Which was a stupid nickname but at some point he had gotten used to it – after weeks and weeks of the costume makers using the name to indicate which outfit was his – and just accepted that it would probably stick with him for the rest of his run at the company.

He reached room C in no-time and he took the door opposite of the room to get to the males' dressing room. He was early anyways so it wouldn’t hurt to change and practise a bit, even though they didn’t have an actual lesson.

Just as he had shredded almost every item of clothing and had unbuttoned his jeans, the door swung open and banged against the wall loudly. Minho jerked at the sudden action and swerved to the right before planting his hand on the wall to steady himself.

‘’Sorry,’’ a soft voice said and Minho looked up to see who had given him a near-heart attack. 

Jisung stood in the door-opening, clad in a puffy coat that reached his ankles and a huge scarf hiding half of his face. The boy stepped inside and closed the door behind him before walking to the bench opposite of Minho. The movement made the big puffy ball on the top of his hat bounce a little and for a second Minho thought that it looked cute.

What didn’t look so cute were the dark circles under the boy’s eyes and the slight greyish sheen over his face.

‘’What happened to you?,’’ Minho asked, his mind too slow to catch the question from making it past his lips.

Jisung pulled off the beanie, revealing a tangled mess of dark-brown locks and turned to look at Minho before shrugging, ‘’Nothing,’’

Now, Minho had totally expected for Jisung to hiss at him to mind his own business or something and so, the lack of any bite in his voice made him a tad bit worried.

‘’You look like you didn’t even sleep last night,’’ Minho remarked as stepped out of his jeans and stuffed it in his bag. 

Jisung turned back around and gave another shrug.

‘’I didn’t,’’ the boy muttered so softly that Minho wasn’t sure if he had heard it right.

‘’Come again?,’’ 

‘’I didn’t sleep last night,’’

Before Minho could even ask why not, the door opened again and more people came filing in, including Woojin and with Hyunjin in tow with Minho’s coffee. Minho let out a sigh and looked at his friends, ‘’Good morning,’’

Woojin just landed his hand on the back of Minho’s neck and gave it a little squeeze like he would always do before plopping down next to him. Hyunjin handed him his coffee while his eyes went from Minho to Jisung.

‘’So, did you get in a few good jabs?,’’ Hyunjin whispered while gesturing to Jisung.

Minho let out a scoff and shook his head. Typical Hyunjin. He was probably hoping they had had yet another fight about something trivial. Hyunjin really liked his drama.

‘’Why do you always assume the worst?,’’ Minho asked as he put on his shirt.

‘’Drama-lama,’’ Woojin responded without even looking at them.

Hyunjin and Woojin then bickered while they got dressed. Minho tuned out after about half a minute and decided to just wait for the two to be done.

From where he sat, he had a good view of Jisung so he just focussed on the boy getting dressed. Not in the creepy way. At least, that’s what he liked to think. Plus, everyone here had seen each other half naked more often than not so it wasn’t all that weird or anything.

Minho was sure he could point out who was who by just looking at their shoulder-blade or something. Probably everyone could.

Talking about shoulder-blades, Minho noticed how Jisung’s seemed to stick out more than usual. It wasn’t all that weird or alarming until he caught a glimpse of the boy’s torso before he tugged his shirt down.

Minho could clearly see all of his ribs and that wasn’t good.

He suddenly realised how Jisung would almost always show up already dressed for practise and if he didn’t, he would always hide away in a corner of the dressing room.

Minho’s mind suddenly screamed danger and he automatically shot up, effectively making everyone turn to him, including Jisung.

The boy looked confused for a bit but didn’t break eye-contact. Minho did when he subconsciously let his eyes wander to the boy’s torso and he frowned when he now suddenly could see how tiny Jisung looked in the shirt.

There was a strange tingling in his fingers and he felt the need to move, but his limbs seemed to be too heavy. A strangely dense cloud of something hung over his head and for a second he felt _scared_. It was weird and uncomfortable and it only grew worse as he let his eyes wander to the boy's legs.

Why hadn't he seen how skinny Jisung _really_ was before?

He could see Jisung’s muscles tense and when he looked back up at the boy’s face, he was getting glared at again.

‘’Stop staring at me,’’ Jisung hissed out.

Minho would have recoiled back if it wasn’t for the fact that Jisung’s eyes slowly seemed to get suspiciously wet. A weird feeling settled in his bones and for some reason, Minho’s vision just narrowed in on Jisung.

The room was still stifling silent and Minho was wrecking his brain to figure out what he was going to do. Then the door opened again and Joshua came waltzing in, belting out lyrics to a song Minho didn’t recognize like he wasn’t almost too late for the meeting.

Now all eyes turned to the boy and he stopped in the middle of the room, slowly pulling his headphones out of his ears as he turned his head around like an owl.

‘’Ehhm, heeeeyyy…,’’

And with that, whatever spell had hung around the room was broken and people unfroze. From the previous tension was nothing left and playful banter hit Minho’s ears like usual. Jisung had slipped out of his sight and out of the room in the midst of it all and Minho could feel himself deflate.

‘’What was up with you just now?,’’ Hyunjin asked him as he aggressively tugged his shorts over his legs.

Minho spun back around and he narrowed his eyes. Now that things were back to normal, he felt incredibly silly about his previous actions. People already thought he was a bit weird – not that it bothered him – and he was sure that people would find an opportunity to bring it up later.

It was stupid, really, the way his insides had suddenly flared up with a sickening feeling and how any logical thinking had gone out of the window.

He probably hung out with Hyunjin and his dramatic ass too much.

‘’Nothing,’’ Minho mumbled as he dug through his bag to find his water bottle. For some reason, his throat was suddenly too dry and too tight.

Hyunjin scoffed, pulling a tank top over his head before turning to face Minho again, ‘’Bro, that was not nothing,’’

Minho decided not to comment on it. After all, there was really nothing he could say. He was not going to embarrass himself even more by telling his friends that for a split second, he though that Jisung was maybe a cause for worry.

‘’I get it though,’’ Hyunjin continued, looking like he was in deep thought, ‘’Jisung’s kinda cute,’’

The sip of water Minho had just taken shot straight into his windpipe and he doubled forward, hackling his lungs out while Woojin patted his back with a heavy hand.

‘’W-what?,’’ Minho managed to wheeze out between coughs.

Hyunjin didn’t even seem to notice that Minho was partially dying right next to him and just proceeded to voice his thoughts.

‘’Now that I think about it, he reminds me of a squirrel. With his cheeks and all? One that fits right into your pocket you know? And he’s kinda pretty too,’’

Woojin hummed right next to Minho’s ear and the latter seriously doubted his friend’s judgement. Jisung was far from cute with the way his tongue seemed to be made from razor-blades or his overall bratty attitude.

Just when Minho could finally breathe again, one of the guys came barrelling in, announcing that Mr. Park was waiting for everyone. Hyunjin just skipped out of the room like calling Jisung cute was the most normal thing in the world to do, leaving Woojin to deal with a slightly dizzy Minho.

So much for having a peaceful morning.

‘’So, now that everyone finally decided to show up,’’ Mr. Park bellowed through the room, sharp gaze on Mingyu – the boy had shown up five minutes late.

‘’Here we go,’’ Hyunjin whispered as he folded his legs under him.

They were all sat on the floor in a semi-circle, all thirty of them, all half-asleep and waiting for the horrible news. Which was probably not all that horrible but meetings like these rarely happened and when they did, it was probably not because the company decided to increase everyone’s pay.

‘’As everyone knows, Felix was supposed to be Jisung’s partner for their piece,’’

People lazily hummed, hoping that Mr. Park would hurry up so that they could get to practising soon. Minho looked over at Jisung and if the boy had looked tired earlier, he looked plain ill at this point. He was sitting all the way at end and his body hunched over. His eyes were barely visible with the way his hair hung in front of them, but Minho could still see the boy’s eyes were closed.

‘’Well, something went wrong during their run-through last night and he ended up breaking his ankle,’’

The room fell deadly quiet and from the corner of his eyes, Minho could see Jisung flinch and look up.

‘’What? What happened?,’’ Hwall asked.

Mr. Park turned his head ever so slightly and looked at Jisung, his brows shot up as he made eye-contact with the boy as if to ask if Jisung wanted to tell himself. The boy shook his head and Mr. Park turned his head again.

‘’Felix slipped during a lift and managed to twist his foot in the wrong direction before he landed on it with his whole weight,’’

There was another collective hum – a bit more sympathetic this time because everyone liked Felix. The boy was always smiling but when things needed to get done, he would change completely and turn all serious.

‘’So that means that Felix will be out of the running for at least two months without rehabilitation included,’’

Minho internally winched. Two months was a long time but that was not even the worst part. It would take months for the tendons to properly fix themselves. And then after all that, Felix would have to rehabilitate to get his ankle back to the strength it’s supposed to be.

And for a dancer, that was one of the most horrible things that could happen. If Felix was unlucky, he would never heal properly and reach the level he was at before. Minho was all too familiar with that and he didn’t wish for that to happen to anyone.

‘’Everyone here will learn the choreography tomorrow. We will decide who will take over Felix’s spot at the end of the day and we will start practise the day after that,’’

The new available spot was very much desired by everyone, but it didn’t feel good that it came at the expense of Felix. However, they did need to fill up the spot if they wanted to perform at Christmas.

There had been auditions for both parts before but Minho hadn’t even bothered to try. His knee had been especially bad that week and even walking down the stairs of his apartment building had been painful. It had been a miracle that he had managed to somewhat get through their normal lessons so auditioning had been out of the question. Not if he wanted to mess his knee up even more.

Hyunjin and Woojin had tried but neither of them had made it to the second round. Hyunjin’s style was apparently too aggressive for the part and Woojin hadn’t gotten the part because they had assigned him to another part – the only man in a piece with all the women.

Jisung – of course – had been chosen for one of the two spots. It hadn’t been a surprise for anyone, however, people always wondered if he had gotten it purely based on skill or the fact that his mother was one of the board members of the academy.

But Minho didn’t like to think about that.

‘’However, the people who have already been assigned two roles will not be chosen for the part unless we deem it necessary,’’ Mr. Park continued, ‘’Clear?,’’

Everyone mumbled a ‘yes’ and Mr. Park nodded, ‘’If anyone has questions, feel free to ask them at the end of the rehearsal this afternoon. For now, you guys are dismissed and me and Miss Park will see you later this afternoon,’’

And that was the end of it.

Minho let out a long sigh and let himself fall on his back, slightly pissed off that he had to get out of bed early just for that. He understood is was an emergency and he felt really bad for Felix, but they could have discussed it during the rehearsal. 

Hyunjin seemed to feel the same about it and fell sideways, his head landing harshly in Minho’s stomach, ‘’He could have just texted that…,’’

People got up to leave and Minho really hoped that no one would stay behind so that he could use the room to practise. He could always go to another room but he liked this one. It was big and the speakers were brand new.

So he just lay there patiently waiting for everyone to leave.

‘’We’re going to eat breakfast with some of the guys,’’ Hyunjin said, turning his head a bit to look at Minho, ‘’You wanna join?,’’

Minho just shook his head and Hyunjin hummed before heaving himself up and on his feet, Woojin following.

‘’Hurry up, slowpoke,’’ Lucas’ head popped around the door opening, ‘’Everyone’s waiting,’’

Hyunjin hastily grabbed his bag and so did Woojin. They threw Minho a little wave before leaving the room, ''See you at rehearsal,''

‘’Hey! Close the door!,’’ Minho yelled after them, but they were already gone.

He rolled his eyes and got up, grumbling under his breath as he made his way to the door. Hyunjin never closed the door behind him. Never. No matter how sweetly Minho would ask, the boy would just laugh and flip him off.

He was just about to close the door when he caught two people talking in the hallway. Now, Minho wasn’t a person who minded everyone’s business, but he did very much like to be in the loop. So with that, he shuffled a bit closer and peeked around the corner, seeing Jisung and Mr. Park standing just a few meters away.

‘’Jisung, next time at least text your parents. If they hadn’t called me they wouldn’t have even known you spent almost the whole night in the hospital with Felix,’’

‘’I know. I’m sorry sir. I just couldn’t leave him there on his own and it was already past seven in the morning when we got to his apartment. I didn’t want to be late so I came straight to the company,’’

So that was why Jisung looked like he was on the verge of dying.

Mr. Park just let out a long sigh before running his hand over his face. He then nodded and patted Jisung’s shoulder, ‘’Go home and don’t come back until you have slept a few hours. I’m sure your father would want to see you’re okay,’’

Mr. Park then stalked away, leaving Jisung in the hallway on his own.

‘’It's not like he cares...,’’ Minho heard Jisung whisper under his breath, his face contorting. 

Jisung let out a sigh and turned to his left, slowly making his way down the hall and disappearing from Minho’s view.

Minho was surprised. He hadn’t expected Jisung to care enough to help Felix out, giving up precious hours of sleep to make sure Felix wouldn’t be alone. It didn’t seem to fit his image. Not that Jisung was a complete asshole – not always – but Minho didn’t peg him for the type that would take care of others.

He probably didn’t give the boy enough credit. Woojin would always speak quite highly of Jisung but it was always so damn difficult to believe him when Jisung seemed to strongly dislike Minho.

Suddenly Minh remembered the team diner they had, celebrating his return. Hyunjin had been drunk off his ass and had managed to trip over his own feet after getting up from the table. He had barely been able to catch himself but as a result, a bowl of soup had been knocked over. All it’s boiling contents had been spilled onto Jisung, the boy shooting backwards and hissing as he cradled his hand.

Purely on instinct, Minho had reached over the table and grabbed Jisung’s wrist, turning over his hand to see if there were any burns.

He had gently ran his fingers over the red skin on Jisung's palm for about a minute or so before the latter pulled his hand back. The boy had shot up from his seat, his face as red as a tomato and his pupils darting all over Minho’s face. Minho had asked if he was okay and the boy had muttered a small ‘I’m fine’ before stalking off to the bathroom.

The rest of the night, Jisung seemed to actively avoid eye-contact with Minho and when they accidentally did, Jisung’s eyes would narrow and he would let out a small huff before turning away again.

From that point on, Minho had only gotten sassy remarks and an overall nasty attitude.

And as he finally closed the door and made his way to the speakers, he figured that him and Jisung were just not meant to be friends.

The boy _really_ didn’t seem to like him.


	2. Bursting Forth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy #WorldBalletDay.

It was the next day that Minho found himself back in room C, trying to keep up to the beat of the music. He could see the guys next to him struggling as well and he realised how crazy all of this was. If only they had appointed an understudy at the beginning, this all wouldn’t have been necessary. Stupid move on the company’s part but maybe it would teach them to do so next time instead of waiting until it was too late and rushing to find a replacement.

They had been taught the choreography for the part in just half an hour, just the basics, really. Nothing more but the fundaments of the movements. Minho thought that they probably looked like idiots, especially because they did all the movements solo, even the passes that were supposed to be done with a partner. 

The part was _difficult_. Minho knew he was one of the fastest learners in the company but he certainly didn’t feel like it when it took him this long to finally understand what he was even supposed to do. His brain was slowly turning into mush, trying to comprehend everything but he managed to stay sharp.

At this point, the music was just on a loop and Mr. Park was just watching how they ran through the choreography over and over again, hoping that on the next run they would get it right.

A few of the guys had given up already and were either seated against the wall at the back or had stormed out of the room agitated. Minho had to admit that whenever someone just halted and disappeared from sight, it was tempting to follow but then he looked at Hyunjin and Woojin next to him from the corner of his eyes and he found the will to continue.

Woojin didn’t really make a chance for the part because he had already been assigned two roles, but then again, the older never missed the opportunity to improve and learn. _‘’It’s good practise,’’_ Woojin had said before they had started.

And Hyunjin? Well, Minho could see the determination on Hyunjin’s face as he glanced at the boy every now and then. They hadn’t really talked about the new available spot but he knew that Hyunjin wouldn’t be going down with a fight. 

Minho could _feel_ how the muscles in his face had contorted and he was starting to get really tired. He did want the part, don’t get him wrong, but this was cruelling and by far the most intense thing Minho had ever experienced at the company. It was stressful and his body was getting heavier by the minute.

There was a slight pause in the choreography as they crouched down and Minho was happy that he could _breathe_ for a few seconds.

‘’Hey Tinkerbell!,’’ Hyunjin whisper-yelled from his right.

Minho turned his head a little to look at the younger. The latter didn’t say anything and just jerked his head to the door. Minho moved a bit to see past the bodies to look at the door and he saw that Jisung had slipped inside, closing the door softly before creeping his way to where Mr. Park was standing.

Minho couldn’t help but snort seeing the boy trying to be stealthy. He was kinda impossible to miss with the way he passed the whole group when they were all crouched down and looking to the front. Jisung didn’t even seem to notice and just continued his way, his face set in concentration. It was really funny how determined the boy seemed to cross the room without people noticing. If it wasn't for the fact that Minho's lungs were struggling with the little amount of oxygen they got, he would have been laughing.

From what Minho could see, the boy wasn’t dressed up in his regular dancing-outfit. The long tights and oversized shirt had been replaced by a pair of sweats and a big hoodie, making it look like the boy had just been lazing around at home before deciding to show up.

The music droned on and before Minho knew it, he had to get up again and move. He was glad the movements had slowly settled into his muscles because he found himself occupied coming up with reasons as to why Jisung had shown up. The boy didn’t have to be here because… well, he just didn’t have to be here.

Suddenly, he remembered that whoever got the part had to dance with the boy. He inwardly groaned and for a split second hoped he wouldn’t get chosen. 

However, he slapped himself out of it for being so childish when he was a professional. He didn’t have to like Jisung. Heck, they didn’t even particularly have to get along all that well. The only important part was, was that they would be ready to perform in a few weeks.

From where Minho was dancing, he could clearly see Jisung sitting on the floor in front of the room with his back against the mirrors. Mr. Park was just pacing about in front of him, eyes trained on the dancers. And when he looked back at Jisung from the corner of his eyes, he almost stumbled as he saw Jisung looking straight at him. He frowned at the sudden attention but managed to ignored it.

But every now and then he would subconsciously check if Jisung had looked away, only to find the boy’s eyes still focussed on him. And Minho was used to be glared at by the boy, but not the way Jisung smiled like a content puppy as he looked at him. 

Minho snapped away just when he thought he saw the boy’s eyes twinkle and he mentally slapped himself. For what, he didn’t know but he suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable and conscious of everything he was doing with Jisung staring at him like that.

It was about twenty minutes later that Minho had fortunately forgotten Jisung was even here at all. He was caught up in getting everything _right_ while trying to make the moves his own. That was until Mr. Park signalled at the audio-guy to stop the music.

Everyone halted and now that the music had stopped, the extent of everyone’s effort could be heard by the panting echoing from the walls. Minho could still feel Jisung’s eyes on him and it was on instinct that he harshly snapped his head towards the boy. Like he had expected, Jisung was looking straight at him but he quickly looked away when Minho’s eyes met his.

Seriously.

Jisung had been acting weird for a few days now – scratch that, he had always been acting weird – but Minho didn’t know where to place the sudden change in attitude. He was still as snappy whenever they had to conversate but he realised how the aggressive glares had stopped and that was confusing him.

‘’So,’’ Mr. Park started off, clapping his hands once to get everyone’s attention, ‘’Now that we have narrowed you guys down, I think we can move on,’’

Minho tilted his head in confusion but a quick glance around the room informed him that more than half of the guys had called it quits and had gathered in one corner. He did a quick head-count and came to a total of eleven out of twenty-four left standing.

‘’You guys are probably aware of the lift?,’’ The man continued as he looked around the room.

No.

Minho wasn’t aware of a particular lift. Why would he when they just started learning the choreography? He turned to look at Woojin and the guy shrugged and shook his head, telling Minho that he didn’t know what Mr. Park was talking about either.

‘’Jisung, come here,’’ Mr. Park said as he beckoned Jisung over.

The boy got up from his spot on the floor and moved to stand next to Mr. Park. 

‘’So, Jisung is here so we can see how you guys manage the lift. I know some of you have never had a partner so we are going to show you guys first before explaining so you get the general idea,’’ 

Well, that explained Jisung’s presence.

Minho had done lifts before so he wasn’t all that nervous about it. However, he was aware that it wasn’t a reason to slack off. Not when his lack of attention could result in Jisung dropping to the floor and maybe breaking a bone or two. He didn’t really have the desire to do this with Jisung, of all people, but that was life.

So he tuned out Hyunjin’s annoying snickering next to him – surely addressed to Minho – and focussed on Mr. Park as the man shrugged off his blazer before rolling his shoulders.   
Jisung moved to pull the hoodie over his head - revealing a plain white t-shirt - and dumped it on the side before bending down to roll up the ends of his sweatpants, probably to avoid it getting in the way. The boy then took a few steps back and gently jumped a few times in place while shaking out his arms.

Jisung seemed relaxed as he probably had done this a million times already, but still, Minho couldn’t help but be a bit drawn into the air of calmness the boy radiated.

Because Minho was sure he would be scared shitless if he had been in Jisung’s position. He probably never would have to be because, let’s face the facts, his body wasn’t meant to be lifted. He was proud to say that he was one of the more muscular guys in the group and that meant that he always did the lifting. Which he was really happy about because he didn’t particularly liked heights.

Minho suddenly registered that with the previous ‘we’, Mr. Park had meant _himself_ and Jisung.

‘’Wait,’’ He whispered out, gaining Hyunjin’s attention, ‘’Mr. Park’s gonna lift him?,’’ 

He could practically _hear_ Hyunjin rolling his eyes when the younger let out a tired sigh, ‘’You are aware that it was Mr. Park that made most of the choreography, right?,’’ The boy whispered in his ear.

Oh.

Yeah.

Stupid of him.

He once again became painfully aware how the endless days of rehearsals and lessons were catching up on him, making him a bit more sluggish than normally and with that came forgetting everything that wasn’t really important. For example, the fact that Mr. Park used to be a dancer himself and made just about all of their choreographies and had probably done this before with Jisung to show Felix how things were supposed to go.

Minho snapped out of it when he suddenly saw Jisung do a little run up to Mr. Park. Right as he jumped, Jisung turned his body and Mr. Park caught him by his waist and used the momentum to lift him up.

That seemed fairly easy, just a regular angel-lift with a little twist but from what Minho could judge, the difficulty came more from the timing than anything else. But he doubted his judgement when he could see Mr. Park frowning a bit. The man’s face straightened out before Minho could even begin to question what was up with that look. 

Mr. Park then lightly tossed the boy up and Jisung twisted his body in the air so that he was looking down, only to fall down an uncomfortable about of height before suddenly catching himself by wrapping his arms around the older male’s neck. Simultaneously, Mr. Park took a hold of the boy’s hips and stopped Jisung from crashing into him by slowly guiding his lower body down until Jisung was close enough. The boy lastly wrapped his legs around Mr. Park’s waist and held on like a koala.

Then Jisung was standing next to Mr. Park again and they looked at each other. Minho could see the man's eyes narrowing the slightest bit and in response, Jisung just turned his head away before moving to pick his hoodie back up.

The strange interaction didn’t go unnoticed by Minho and combined with the weird look on Mr. Park’s face after lifting Jisung, he was sure that there was something going on. The choreographer almost looked worried. But about what, Minho of course didn’t know.

Mr. Park then clapped his hands once again, ‘’That’s how it’s supposed to go. I hope you all payed attention?,’’ 

They hummed and nodded but Minho could tell by the looks on their faces that their confidence had dwindled down. 

To be fair, there were a lot of things that could go wrong here. The first thing that could end disastrous was missing the timing and momentum to lift Jisung, which would inevitably result in the boy knocking into whoever was supposed to lift him and sending them both crashing into the floor. 

Minho inwardly winced by the idea of the back of his skull colliding with the floor but it made him all the more determined to _not_ let that happen.

Next would be the little toss-up. Well, it wasn’t so much the toss but more the waiting for Jisung to fall down and somewhat catch himself.

From the moment Minho had been thought lifts, it had been imprinted in his brain by his instructors that no matter what goes wrong, you _always_ catch your partner before they get too close to the floor. That’s what he was supposed to do.

And with the catch the two had just demonstrated, there was very little room for error. Minho had seen that the window for Mr. Park to take a hold of the boy’s hips had been horrifyingly narrow. It was doable, but it would take endless practise to get the timing right every time.

Jisung re-appeared next to Mr. Park with his hoodie back on, running a hand through his hair before stuffing them away in his pockets.

‘’We’ll take a little break before we continue to make sure you guys are a bit more put together. Eat lunch and be back here in thirty okay?,’’

The group dispersed quickly after that and before Minho knew it, he had been dragged out by Hyunjin with Woojin lazily strolling behind them.

They reached the cafeteria in no time and when they stepped in, the place was crowded with people drenched in sweat. Minho didn’t like eating while being all gross and sticky, but they didn’t really have a lot of time. Thirty minutes was fine but not enough to take a shower as well so for now he’d just have to ignore it.

Normally, their lunch breaks were around an hour and sometimes even longer when they didn’t have a particular lesson or rehearsal which gave him the luxury of taking a long hot shower. The short break was a clear indication of how little time they had to fill Felix’s place.

Woojin managed to find a table in the back and they wormed through the mass of bodies to reach it, occasionally brushing against someone’s sweaty arm. They managed to reach the table fairly easy and Minho let himself plop down, enjoying the cold steel of the chair.

Hyunjin draped himself over the table in a dramatic manner as soon as he had sat down and Woojin soon followed, minus the theatrics, of course.

‘’I’m so hungry I could eat an elephant,’’ Hyunjin whined.

‘’I hate to crush your dreams,’’ Woojin responded as he leaned back in his chair, ‘’But I’m pretty sure doing that would turn _you_ into an elephant,’’

Minho felt a sense of deja vu as the two went off again and he hastily removed himself from the situation by getting up to get some food. He had tried to interrupt them to ask what they wanted to eat but they had completely ignored him and so they could go fix their own food. He had managed to get the employees-card out of Woojin’s pocket without him noticing and he was already looking forward to a discounted meal.

Was it completely legal for him to use that card?

No.

Was it legal for Woojin to even had one?

Heck no.

Did anyone ever bother to reprimand them for it?

Absolutely not.

If there was one thing Woojin had gotten from his previous relationship with the producer of the company, it was that exact personalised discount-card. From what Minho knew, Bang Chan had managed to get an extra one after pretending that he had lost his previous one. So suddenly he had had two of them and naturally, one of them had gone to Woojin. Which apparently had been the plan all along, according to Woojin. After their break-up, the guy had let Woojin keep it and that’s how Minho could now save a couple of bucks on his lunch.

He joined the long line and he really hoped he would have time to properly eat his lunch. From what he could tell, it was going to be iffy.

The row moved antagonising slowly but Minho kept his cool. He had skipped meals before so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he would have to resume practise on an empty stomach. Plus, he knew that Woojin always kept an emergency stack of protein bars in his bag. In the worst case of him getting a bit feint, he could always raid Woojin’s supplies.  
The big clock on the wall behind him informed him that he had been in line for around seven minutes now and that he only had about fifteen left to get his food, eat it and get his ass back to practise. He was getting a bit anxious about that but there were only three people in front of him left.

He turned around to see if Woojin and Hyunjin had joined the line as well, but he couldn’t find them so being the good friend he was, he decided to get them food after all. It would spare them a handful of minutes _at least_.

It was when he had almost reached the front of the line that he recognized that it was Jisung who was ordering food. Minho hoped that the boy wouldn’t turn out to be one of those people who wanted everything customised because, to be honest, Minho pegged Jisung to be the type to do that. 

He didn’t really pay attention to the boy as his mind had drifted off after he had glanced at the clock once more and he was now more occupied with running numbers to see how fast he would have to down his food. 

That was until Jisung was gone within less than a minute and in Minho’s surprise by the quick order, he saw the boy leaving with merely a bottle of water in his hand. And without him asking for it, his heart skipped a beat again but he shrugged it off. 

He had to get his act straight if he didn’t want people to think he was someone who just liked to see the worst in things just so that things would be a bit more interesting. Or insane. He didn’t want people to think he was insane.

Before he knew it, it was his turn to order and Jisung had soon been forgotten as he saw that there was a deal on chicken. Minho almost grimaced as he was once again seeing chicken. He used to really love chicken but ever since he had known Woojin, it had been slowly descending from his list of favourite foods. He just ate it too much for it to hold any kind of _real_ value at this point.

But he was nice so he ordered the fried chicken for Woojin and some hipster-sounding salad with rice on the side for Hyunjin. Nothing on the menu looked really appetizing to Minho but now that he had spent all this time on just standing here, he couldn’t just order nothing for himself. He settled on fried rice – even though he knew that stuff would get digested like crazy and probably leave him hungry in about an hour or two – and waited for the lady to assemble his order on a tray.

Minho had finally found his way back to the table with only ten minutes to spare. Hyunjin and Woojin had fortunately stopped bickering and teamed up to tell Minho how wonderful he was for getting them food because they had been too caught up to notice the time.

So with that said, they stuffed their mouths with occasional weary glances at their phones to make sure they would be back at practise on time. 

It was when they had two minutes left that they finished and they all shot up and started dashing, leaving their trays behind on the table and Minho sent a mental ‘sorry’ to whoever would have to clean their stuff.

A mad dash and two minutes later, Minho found himself doubled over and slightly nauseous from running on a full stomach, but they had made it and that was all that mattered. They weren’t even the last ones and Minho could hear Hyunjin mutter a soft _‘thank god Rocky is always late’_ before moving to stand in line with the others.

Woojin patted Minho’s back before following, stopping for a short second to talk to Jisung standing at the front with Mr. Park. 

Apparently, Woojin said something funny because suddenly Jisung was laughing and Minho had to admit that it was a nice thing to see. Jisung never laughed. The most someone could get out of him was a little smile but that was about as far as anyone ever got. 

Minho noticed how Jisung’s cheeks would puff up even more than normally when he laughed like that. 

It was cute.

And that’s where Minho stopped himself.

He shook his head and let out a heavy sigh as he stood back up again. 

Minho didn’t understand how Woojin managed to get Jisung to react like that. It was as if Jisung just deflated when the older would talk to him. Minho got it – Woojin just had this vibe that made you feel like you were wrapped up in a warm blanket – but he didn’t get why Jisung was always so high-strung with everyone else.

With _him_.

It was really unfair, now that he thought about it. Sure, he had told himself that it was just the way things were and that Jisung treated everyone just about the same way, but Minho wasn’t crazy and he _knew_ that the real shitty treatment was reserved for Minho alone. 

He had once voiced his thoughts and Hyunjin had indulged him by saying that Jisung probably saw him as a threat but Woojin had shot that right down. It had been forgotten after that but the explanation seemed to make more sense the more time passed.

But even if that was true, there wasn’t really anything Minho would be able to do about it. It was Jisung who felt that way and even if Minho would try to talk to the boy about it, the latter would not listen to him anyways.

So he let it go and moved to join the rest of the boys.

As he passed behind Woojin and Jisung, he almost chocked on air as he heard an unfamiliar giggle. It sounded soft and airy and warm and Minho figured it must have been Jisung and he didn’t like that. It was unsettling as Minho’s brain deemed it important to let the sound repeat in his head over and over as he stood next to Hyunjin, the boy’s brows raised in surprise when Minho caught his eye.

He was going to ask what Hyunjin seemed so confused about but then he caught sight of himself in the huge mirror in front of him. He almost chocked for the second time when he caught himself smiling softly.

The corners of his mouth dropped quickly after that and he could see his own eyes growing bigger in surprise. 

Minho had never seen himself smile like that, not even in pictures and he lowkey freaked out.

He didn’t have time to get into a full panic because Rocky came crashing through the door while apologizing profusely to an agitated Mr. Park before rushing to stand next to the others.

Mr. Park did some more explaining before ordering everyone to sit down at the back of the room, calling them out one by one to try the lift.

Things were a bit messy and clumsy with the first few guys but nothing majorly bad happened. 

Lucas had manged to actually lift Jisung but that was as far as they had gotten before Lucas had carefully set Jisung back down on the floor, Rocky was out as he didn’t even manage to get Jisung off of the floor, Hwall had messed up by almost dropping Jisung and only partially catching Jisung before the boy’s feet landed on the floor harshly and Hyunjin chickened out after Jisung had twisted in the air which resulted in Hyunjin catching the boy above his head.

Throughout it all, Minho could see Jisung getting more and more nervous and he felt a bit sorry for the guy. The chances of something going wrong were real and because some of the guys had never done this before, Jisung was surely a bit scared. 

Things like this took trust and knowing each other and all that wasn’t there.

It was incredibly stupid that Mr. Park even let them try a lift at this point and Minho could feel the agitation build as yet another guy slipped up and Jisung barely had enough time to wrap his arms around the guy’s neck before crashing into him.

Things were fine, but Minho hadn’t missed the look of panic on Jisung’s face and the sharp intake of air as he had scrambled to get a hold of the other boy to prevent himself from connecting with the wooden floor.

This was crazy and not okay.

It was when it was Woojin’s turn that Jisung seemed to let out a long sigh before shooting the older a little smile. Minho knew that Woojin could do this – he was really one of the best when it came to doing this - and he could feel his own agitation seep out of him with the thought that it was just Woojin and him left. 

Much like expected, Woojin lifted Jisung with ease and managed to catch Jisung just at the right time before finishing off.

Mr. Park let out a satisfied hum and patted Woojin’s back, eyes set in a light frustration. Minho understood that Woojin was probably the best option for the part but like he had said before, the guy already had his max of roles and Mr. Park was probably not happy about that rule. 

Sure, there were exceptions but the company was all about a fair distribution of parts and so, Woojin wouldn’t get the part unless the rest were deemed out of question for the part.

‘’Lee, you’re up,’’

Minho got up and made his way to stand in the middle of the room, noticing how his hands were a bit more sweaty than before. He wasn’t nervous but it was normal to be a bit afraid to mess up. It was what kept you on your toes and focussed.

He looked at Jisung and saw that from his previous relaxed state was nothing left. The boy looked even more nervous than he had with the others and Minho had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. Just because they didn’t get along didn’t mean that Minho wasn’t going to try his best to make sure the boy wouldn’t get hurt. 

The boy looked so uncomfortable and unsure that Minho had spoken up before he knew it.

‘’Relax. I’ve done this before so don’t worry about it. I’m not going to drop you,’’

Jisung stilled and narrowed his eyes, his muscles still tense and Minho figured that it wasn’t enough to make the younger to calm down.

‘’I promise,’’ Minho followed up, holding out his pinkie to emphasise his words.

This whole thing wasn’t going to work if Jisung didn’t trust he could do this. He didn’t blame the boy but he _really_ needed Jisung to look past whatever grudge he had and trust him for once.

Jisung’s eyes widened in – what Minho assumed was – surprise and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights again. Minho gave it a shot and smiled at the boy as genuinely as possible and he was glad to see Jisung smile back timidly before he relaxed.

Minho felt his own nerves calm down by Jisung’s reaction and he nodded, signalling to the boy that he was ready to go whenever he was. 

The boy closed his eyes and Minho could see him taking a deep breath before opening his eyes again, finding Minho’s and screaming determination. 

And then he started moving.

The room around the boy faded quickly and the only thing Minho could see was Jisung getting closer and closer and before he knew it, Jisung jumped with a little twist.

Minho thanked the heavens when his body moved on it’s own and his hands landed on the boy’s waist right where they needed to be. He effortlessly lifted Jisung up, so much so that he had barely noticed it.

What he did notice, however, was that Jisung was _light_. He knew that the boy was, but to Minho it felt more like he was holding a stack of books above his head instead of an actually human being. An adult one at that. 

He was surprised and he almost lowered his arms but stopped himself before actually doing so.

‘’If you drop me you’re dead,’’ Jisung suddenly whispered, his voice too shaky to actually sound like a threat. 

Minho was too focussed to properly registered it and he threw Jisung up. 

The nerves came crashing back when he looked up at Jisung and saw that the boy was already on his way down, arms already reaching out to wrap them around Minho’s neck.  
But he pushed it away to the back of his mind and told himself to just _focus_. As soon as he did that, everything seemed to slow down and Jisung was now falling a bit less fast and Minho could feel the previous confidence returning.

He could totally do this. He just had to trust that his hands would find the boy’s hips. That was the only thing he needed to think about.

Then he could feel Jisung’s arms around his neck and his own arms shot out on instinct, successfully taking a hold of the boy and gently guiding Jisung down until the boy his body was flush against Minho’s.

He only registered he - _they_ \- had pulled it off when he could feel Jisung tightening his hold on him and a shaky exhale against his ear. 

‘’Thanks,’’ Jisung whispered softly, the boy making no move to let go.

And Minho became painfully aware of the intimate position they were in when he could feel Jisung’s heart beating rapidly against his chest. He could feel his own heart do a weird flip in his chest and he took a sharp inhale in response. It only made it worse as he held his breath and suddenly it was too hot.

It spread from somewhere deep inside his chest to the rest of his body and he almost shivered at the sensation. It took him completely by surprise and he tried to place the feeling, but he couldn't come up with a situation in which he had ever felt the same thing happening. It was overwhelming, ready to claw it's way out and make it's presence know to everyone around and it made him feel a bit nauseous because of the sheer force of it.

He didn't know how it had happened but he found himself wrapping his arms around Jisung, trying to steady himself but holding onto the boy. In the midst of his confusion, he swore he could feel the muscles in Jisung's back tense again before they relaxed and another soft exhale brushed past Minho's ear.

‘’Okay!,’’ Mr. Park suddenly bellowed, ‘’Thank you gentlemen, you can let go now,’’

Jisung flinched in his arms before he let out a squeal and Minho retreated his arms quickly. Jisung detached himself rapidly like Minho was suddenly on fire, stumbling a bit as he tried to steady his feet.

And Minho could _breathe_ again, even when it felt like the rest of his body had stopped functioning properly. His brain was completely silent and even though he could hear someone snickering on his left, it didn’t come through. 

It was when a heavy hand landed on his back that he was able to snap out of whatever he had been stuck in and he jerked forward by the sudden impact, only to see Mr. Park smiling at him when he turned around.

‘’I’m not making promise but I think the decision is already made,’’ The man followed up before motioning to the rest of the guys to gather in the middle of the room.

Jisung had long disappeared from his side and was now basically standing on the other side of the room with his head hung low and his hands on his hips, biting his lip as he stared at the floor in front of him. 

Minho's brain finally caught up and he was starting to stress out.

He was so confused about what the fuck just happened and it hit him like a bomb when he suddenly felt _scared_. He didn’t know where it came from but his stomach twisted in a weird way when he could see Jisung trying to look at him without him noticing.

Minho’s mind was going haywire as it tried to come up with an explanation but no matter how much the thought, he was coming up empty.

And so, he zoned out Mr. Parks speech about when it would be announced who got the part and how Woojin kept looking at him with a little smile.

He was getting upset and shaky and it didn’t help him calm down in any way. He was working himself up and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening. The image of Jisung so close and the heath radiating from his body as he had clung to Minho was making everything even worse and Minho swore he could feel his eyes sting.

So when Hyunjin poked his side and informed him that they were free to go, Minho sprung into action and rushed over to get his bag. He stuffed his belongings haphazardly into the bag – not caring if things weren’t in their designated spot – before swinging it over his shoulder.

He was aware that he was behaving out of character but that didn’t matter. Minho could see Hyunjin and Woojin walking over to him and for once in his life, he didn’t want to talk to his friends. Not when he wanted to cry on the spot for a reason he didn’t even know himself.

So he ignored them as he brushed past the boys and dashed out the door and down the hallway, ignoring their calls. 

This was not good.

Was it the lack of sleep? Had he been working too hard? Was he stresses out?

He was present enough to throw on his jacket before getting outside but it barely did anything to keep him warm. He hadn’t changed into his normal clothes and the cold wind was cutting his skin like invisible knives but that was fine.

It was all fine.

He just needed rest and then everything would turn back to normal tomorrow. Minho would forget whatever had happened today and he would continue like nothing had ever happened before.

However, his throat threatened to close up on him when he could hear Jisung giggle again, his brain digging it up from where it was stored. Minho shook his head in a desperate attempt to get rid of it and fortunately, it stopped.

He was fine.

It’s not like his brain suddenly yelled at him that Jisung was really adorable. Or how nice it had felt to hug the boy like that. Or that it would be nice to see the boy laughing more.

So it was all fine.

But deep down, he knew it wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what it is, but I really enjoyed writing this chapter? I dunno, it was just fun writing it.


	3. Fever Dream

When Minho woke up the following morning, it wasn’t to the sound of his wonderful alarm, but the annoying ringing of his phone. He shot up – his head spinning for a second. Weird - before he had even opened his eyes properly and blindly reached to the nightstand, his finger bumping against the cold steel before he manged to find the device.

A chill ran down his spine when the cold air in the room seeped underneath his blanket and even though he was wearing a hoodie, he felt incredible cold. So cold that he could feel himself starting to tremble and he pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, only leaving his back and one arm exposed.

When he held his phone up to his face to see who was calling this early in the morning, he got blinded and he recoiled back, hissing in response. His vision was blurry by the sudden attack so he gave up on reading the caller’s name and just pressed the green little button on his screen.

‘’Hello?,’ he groggily spoke, closing his eyes because for some reason it was too difficult to keep them open.

_‘’Where the hell are you?,’’_

Woojin.

Minho scraped his throat, wincing when he felt a slight burn after doing so, ‘’What do you mean? I’m at home?,’’

There was a little silence and for a second Minho thought that Woojin had hung up on him, but then there was a deep sigh.

_’’Did you even check your mail before going to sleep last night?,’’_

No.

No he hadn’t.

He had gone straight to bed after coming home yesterday, not even bothering to make himself dinner. 

He groaned when the events of the day prior ran through his head and he slapped his own cheek in an attempt to get him to focus on something else, pushing the confusion and dread to the back of his mind.

Talking about his mind, it felt like his brain was a big mush. It was as if someone had scrambled them up and then filled the left-over space with cotton, or something else that severely dampened his ability to think.

_’’You want the good news first or the bad news?,’’_

‘’Good,’’ Minho replied.

He just hoped Woojin would hurry up because he didn’t know for how long he could keep his phone to his ear. Gravity was really trying its best to pull his arm down and he wondered what made his limbs feel so heavy all of the sudden.

_’’You got the part,’’_

Minho just hummed and let his body flop back onto his bed, shivering once again. Not to be all conceded, but he wasn’t crazy. The others had done so incredibly bad and he was one of the very few that hadn’t fucked up the whole thing, so it wasn’t _really_ a surprise that he had gotten the part.

And that was great but he didn’t feel like celebrating it right now.

He heard Woojin say something, however, it didn’t settle in his brain so he just hummed again and hoped that it was the proper response. 

_’’Okay, I can buy you ten minutes tops before I have to go to rehearsals so hurry up,’’_

The line went dead and Minho was left more confused than ever. What did Woojin mean, buying him ten minutes?

Oh.

He painstakingly opened his eyes again and looked at his phone. The light still burned his eyes but he forced himself to keep looking even if his eyes teared up slightly, finding that it was already way past ten in the morning.

The number didn’t reach his brain even though he knew that something wasn’t quite right. So he tried really hard to figure out where the slight panic came from and then it suddenly clicked.

He was late.

Like, _really_ late.

Especially now that he had gotten the part.

People were probably waiting for him.

Mr. Park, Miss Kim, Jisung…

He shot up and pushed himself out of bed, stumbling as he almost tripped over the little carpet on the floor. Even though his head was suddenly pounding, he managed to find the light-switch on the wall and flipped it. 

Pulling back the curtains wasn’t necessary because he simply didn’t have the time and neither would he be home until dark, so there were other things he could spend those thirty seconds on.

Minho hissed again when the bright light hit his eyes, followed by a weird feeling spreading through his stomach, almost a keen to nausea but not quite that bad.

He knew that he should take a shower because he hadn’t done so yesterday evening – even after being sweaty as hell – but the idea of getting out of his clothes and having to leave the warm water at some point were enough to make him go the other way and to his closet instead.

Why did it suddenly feel so much more colder than yesterday?

Without checking, he grabbed whatever his hands landed on and he changed. Luckily he had grabbed his biggest and warmest hoodie and a thick pair of sweats, which should suffice. However, even after he had changed and rushed through his room, his body still felt like he had spend hours and hours drifting in ice-cold water.

But why did it feel like his face was on fire?

He could literally feel the heath radiating from his skin when he hastily ran his fingers through his hair to untangle it.

After just a little over three minutes, Minho stumbled over to the door and stepped into his vans before slipping on a jacket. Another minute and he was out the door.

‘’Well, look who decided to show up,’’ Mr. Park sighed, eyeing the clock on the wall before running a hand over his face.

Minho used all of his energy to shoot the man an apologetic smile as he shuffled across the room, slipping out of his coat – out of curtesy because he was still so, so cold - and dumping it on the couch in the back of the room.

Coincidently, Jisung was seated on that exact same couch, face hidden by a big scarf and a beanie pulled all the way down over his eyebrows. Much like Minho, he was wearing a hoodie that was just too big for his body and a pair of sweats, making it look like the boy had just rolled out of bed, _again_. 

To be honest, Jisung looked like he was going to fall asleep any minute now if it wasn’t for the way he sat himself up, eyes falling on Minho ungracefully plopping down on the couch next to him.

Minho’s muscles ached and he was a bit out of breath. Whether it was from almost sprinting to the company or something else, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he should get up and get to stretching but he just _couldn’t_. Everything hurt and he was cold and his vision was a bit fuzzy and he wanted to go back to bed so, so bad.

‘’Han,’’ Minho sighed as he leaned back and rolled his head to look at the boy.

‘’Lee,’’ Jisung replied, voice muffled because of the fabric in front of his mouth but still audible enough for Minho hear his voice crack painfully at the end, making the older wince at the sound. 

Then the younger coughed loudly and doubled over, wheezing for a good few seconds and breathing heavily before letting himself fall back into the couch. 

Jisung’s eyes were closed as the boy let his head roll to the side much like Minho had done just a little while ago, giving Minho a good view of his face. Or what was visible of it. 

Jisung’s face was flushed a bright red and weird sheen informed Minho that the boy’s face was a bit damp, like he was sweating.

‘’You could just take that scarf off you know?,’’ he pointed out, his voice slowly turning more and more raspier. 

To be honest, Minho wished he had been so wise to wear one himself.

Jisung opened his eyes and Minho frowned when he saw how cloudy the boy’s gaze was. That caused some concern. And it wasn’t just that, but the way the boy seemed to be even tinier than usual didn’t seem right.

The way Jisung sat there, all curled up and arms wrapped around his knees, made Minho sad for a split second. Jisung hackled again and this time Minho could _feel_ the boy’s body jerk next to him and it suddenly clicked.

‘’Wait,’’ Minho whispered, ‘’Are you ill?,’’

It looked like the younger was really not feeling well – almost ready to collapse, honestly - and Minho quickly came to the conclusion that it was also the reason Jisung had been so meek yesterday.

‘’I could ask you the same,’’ Jisung croaked.

The younger’s eyes seemed even glossier than before but Minho could still clearly see the concern as Jisung’s eyes darted over his face. He then realised how close they were, faces almost _too_ close as they looked at each other. An uncomfortable thump in his chest made Minho hold his breath for a second before he shakily exhaled, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to hug the boy.

He was really out of it and he tried to shake his head to get back into the present, making his head hurt even more.

The pieces fell into place and he realised that he, maybe, was ill indeed. Probably a fever now that he thought about it. And he felt incredibly stupid he had missed it in the first place and that it took Jisung to point it out to him before he recognized the heaviness of his body, the cold shivers running through his limbs, the dull ache in his head and so on.

Well, that _would_ explain why he had felt so off yesterday.

He let out a sigh of relief when he came to the conclusion that the only thing that was and had been wrong with him was a building fever and not something else.

Maybe that was also the reason he thought that Jisung was cute, especially when he caught him shuffling a bit closer and letting his knees fall to the side until they rested on the older’s thighs before sinking into the couch even more.

Yeah, that was it.

‘’I guess I am?,’’ Minho sighed out, feeling really shitty about the situation. It was almost certain that rehearsing was out of the question now and they didn’t really have time for that. They – Minho specifically – needed all the time they could get. But then again, he even struggled to keep his eyes open so it really was for the best.

Jisung hummed and turned his head again to look at Mr. Park, the man seemingly stuck in a discussion with Miss Kim and the audio guy.

‘’Good,’’

Minho’s heart thumped again but this time it kinda… hurt?

‘’Okay, wow,’’ Minho rushed out, glaring – or at least, he thought he was - at the boy next to him ‘’That was unnecessary,’’

Jisung was back to being Jisung and even though Minho appreciated at least _something_ being normal again, he didn’t like it. The response ticked him off even more than usual and he figured it was because he had gotten a sneak peak of who Jisung _could_ be, that it was indeed possible to have some kind of normal conversation with the younger and that the boy could, maybe, be somewhat lovable with his bratty walls down.

The younger swiftly rolled his head towards him again, brows furrowed before he suddenly let out a loud gasp, eyes doubling in size again.

‘’No, shit sorry! That wasn’t what I meant!,’’

Minho managed to do a quick dismissive wave before letting his arm drop on the couch again, ‘’Yeah, whatever,’’ 

He hadn’t expected a hand to grip the side of his hoodie, but that was exactly what happened and his muscles tensed at the feeling of Jisung holding onto the fabric, fingers slightly touching his side.

Letting out another sigh, he looked at Jisung again. The boy seemed really upset, maybe a bit panicked, even.

‘’I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean it that way,’’ he spluttered, tugging at Minho’s hoodie, ‘’I meant that it would have really sucked if I had been the one to slow us down. I mean, you wouldn’t have been able to practise when I’m like this and I would’ve felt really guilty about that. I wasn’t saying that I am happy that you’re not feeling well,’’

Cute.

God dammit.

Minho groaned and shut his eyes, running his free hand over his face and grimacing when he felt the dampness on his skin. Gross.

‘’Okay boys, go home,’’ Mr. Park suddenly bellowed as he walked over to the pair, ‘’You are both obviously not in the condition to practise so go home, get some medicine and go sleep. We’ll see if we can fit you guys into the schedule tomorrow,’’

Minho was really fucking thankful for Park’s interruption because his chest kept getting tighter and tighter the longer Jisung held onto his hoodie and he needed someone to cut the strange tension he suddenly felt.

He really did have a massive fever, didn’t he?

However, Jisung didn’t let go and let himself slump back, ending up completely glued to Minho in the process. And even though he lowkey freaked out when he realised that Jisung was now practically draped all over him, Minho was able to let it go. The contact was oddly relaxing and Jisung was warm so he didn’t shove the younger away – not that he had the strength to do so at the moment but then again, Jisung was so light that it probably wouldn’t take all that much – and shuffled a bit so that he was more comfortable.

‘’This is your fault you know?,’’ the younger whispered as he closed his eyes, ‘’So thanks,’’

‘’Oh? And why is this _my_ fault? Who says it wasn’t you who infected me with your germs?,’’ Minho shot back, wincing once again when the words cut his throat on their way out of his mouth.

There was no witty or sassy comeback but for once he didn’t question it, neither did he point it out because he was too tired to argue with Jisung and luckily for him, Jisung didn’t seem to feel up for that either.

So he just let it be and let his body soak up the heath, letting out a sigh when Jisung’s other hand – the one that _wasn’t_ gripping onto him – fell on his leg. It almost startled him but his body was to sluggish to react to it.

Actually, it was kinda nice he wasn’t feeling all that great either because he didn’t know how he would have handled Jisung otherwise. His mind was oddly cloudy and he couldn’t really think properly so there was no over-thinking – he knew he would be doing that at a later time though – and _for once_ he didn’t even feel the need to think.

‘’Minho, can you get back home on your own? We can see if we can get Woojin or Hyunjin out of their rehearsals for a bit…,’’ Mr. park trailed off.

Minho opened his eyes – when had he even closed them? – and slowly shook his head.

‘’No it’s fine. It’s just a short walk,’’

He was not going to ruin his friends day by being all pathetic and needing their help. He was sure they would chew him out for not telling them he was ill later, but that could come… later, when he wasn’t feeling like he was floating around between his body and space.

He then noticed that there was a bit of weight on his shoulder and when he looked to his left, he saw Jisung leaning on said shoulder with his eyes closed, the grip on Minho’s shirt barely present.

It was strange, seeing the younger so… different from normal and Minho didn’t quite know what to make of it. Either way, he had to admit that he liked this Jisung way more than the other one and so, he slightly nudged the younger in an attempt to wake him up again instead of shoving him.

Which was surprisingly easy because he had even barely touched the boy or his eyes flew open and even though Minho couldn’t see his face very clearly, he _could_ see his eyelashes flutter slowly as he blinked.

Had they always been that long and almost perfectly curled up?

It made Minho a bit dizzy and he had to put his focus elsewhere.

He expected Jisung to move away as soon as he had properly woken up again but the boy didn’t move an inch, surprising Minho by taking a hold of his arm instead.

‘’I’m sleepy,’’ the younger muttered under his breath and Minho let out a soft groan when Jisung turned to look up at him with half-closed eyes.

But he managed to force out something that sounded like a snort, wincing when the air burned somewhere in his nose – when did his nose start to feel stuffy? - , ‘’I can see that,’’

Jisung let out a huff as he turned his head away and Minho could imagine the boy’s cheeks puffed up and it was weirdly easy to imagine, a bit _too_ much.

‘’I’ll call your father and ask him to come pick you up,’’ Miss Kim stated as she looked at Jisung, phone already in hand, ‘’I don’t want you trying to go back home on your own,’’

Jisung shot up and his eyes grew bigger than normal, informing Minho that the boy didn’t really like that plan.

‘’No!,’’

Minho winced at the sudden yell right next to his ear and his head pounded painfully. So much so that he hissed, closed his eyes and pressed his free hand against his temple.

The boy next to him shifted again, his grip from the older’s arm disappearing and before Minho knew it, his hand got gently pulled away from his head.

He opened his eyes again and his breath hitched when Jisung reached out and placed his hands on the side of Minho’s head, using his thumbs to draw delicate circles on his temples. 

‘’Sorry,’’ the boy croaked, his focus on the older’s head and Minho saw him frowning.

Something in him screamed that this wasn’t right, but Jisung’s slender fingers were surprisingly cool despite the heath radiating from the rest of his body and Minho felt the dull ache slowly disappear. He closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, welcoming Jisung’s gentle touch and he stopped trying to chastise himself for allowing it.

How had things turned out like this?

To be more precise, how did Jisung turn out to be like this?

It was as if the boy was someone else completely. Instead of pushing Minho away – initiating petty fight after petty fight – he was now suddenly pulling him closer. Not in the physical sense per se, but there was just something _so_ inviting about Jisung right now. 

A certain vulnerability, maybe, and the fact that Minho got to witness that. That Jisung _let_ him witness that. Or maybe it was the fact that the younger seemed to care about how Minho was feeling. 

However, the older refused to belief that it was because it was _him_.

He could settle for Jisung being more caring than he had initially thought, but the thought that Jisung cared about him specifically was just absurd.

Even when he found himself to be worried about Jisung. Not because, right now, he was in a state that would warrant a fellow human being to worry, but _because_ it was Jisung.

Jisung, who was normally full of fire in every sense of the word, whose presence was always huge and demanded a certain attention.

Jisung, who was now nothing more but a shivering mess, who looked too tiny for comfort.

Too brittle to ward off anything or anyone.

That was what made Minho worry.

The touch disappeared all too quickly and he could hear Jisung’s breathing grow heavier.

‘’I mean, it’s okay. I can go back home on my own,’’ the younger wheezed out, ending up coughing loudly.

Minho raised his brow and called bullshit. He didn’t know how far Jisung’s place was from the company but Mr. Park had offered to call the boy’s dad, indicating that he thought it was too far to be sure Jisung could get there on his own.

For some reason, Jisung really didn’t seem all that comfortable with the idea of going home. Of course, Minho didn’t understand why not but that wasn’t weird because he didn’t really know anything about Jisung.

He saw the stressed look on the boy’s face and he swore he could see _fear_ passing through Jisung’s eyes.

Fuck it.

Minho had already accepted everything was off and he no longer felt like fighting it. Today was just a bad day – or a good day? - and he let go of this idea that he needed to remember that Jisung normally wasn’t his nice or… _adorable_ and that they never got along.

‘’You can come to my place,’’

It had left his mouth without his brain properly thinking about what it meant but there was nothing he could do about it now, could he? Except for hoping that Jisung would stop being so endearing and affectionate because Minho didn’t know what to do with this urge to protect the boy or where to place it.

So he just stared at Jisung and waited for him to reply, which took a lot longer than he had expected and even though everything was a bit hazy, he clearly saw the surprise on Jisung’s face.

‘’What?,’’ the boy squeezed out, his finger’s tightening their grip.

Minho rolled his eyes in an attempt to restore some of their usual dynamics – quickly regretting that when another wave of nausea hit him – and patted the boy’s knee, ‘’I said that you could come with me to my place if you want,’’

Jisung snapped his head down and stared at Minho’s hand on his leg and the older quickly realised he was acting out of character again and he retreated his hand quickly, ignoring the adrenaline seeping into his veins.

It made his muscles tense and the pounding in his head returned but that was partly Jisung’s fault because the boy had slumped against his side again, gently nodding his head and reminding Minho of a little kitten as said boy practically nuzzled his arm.

‘’Thanks,’’ Jisung softly muttered, taking a big inhale before - once again - coughing loudly. 

Minho could feel Jisung’s body jerk, combined with heavy wheezes once the coughing stopped and he really felt sorry for him. Jisung already looked so tiny whenever he wasn’t throwing sassy remarks at him but now that he was properly sick, Minho had this sudden urge to just wrap the boy up in a million blankets and feed him soup or something.

To be honest, now that he allowed himself to think about Jisung, it wasn’t the first time he had felt like doing that. Or at least, _something_ like that. But he had always blamed it on the fact that he was just older and naturally felt like caring for the younger people in the company, even those who didn’t seem to be able to stand him.

So even though Jisung had never really been a nice person to him prior to now, Minho couldn’t just leave the boy here to figure it out by himself. 

Minho _was_ surprised that Jisung had accepted his offer without any resistance at all and that was enough for him to know that the boy really wasn’t feeling well. Why else would he have accepted defeat before they had even fought? 

‘’Okay, good,’’ Mr. Park interrupted, motioning towards Miss Kim, ‘’Call me when you guys get there and take a lot of rest. We’ll keep in contact and figure out what to do later,’’

Minho hummed and watched the two professors leave the room, hurrying off to probably see how they were going to shuffle things around so that he and Jisung still got to practise as soon as possible.

Jisung was still as unmoving as before and Minho didn’t feel like getting up either but he knew that falling asleep on the couch wasn’t going to do them any good in the long run. So with that, he used all of his strength to sit himself up.

As soon as he did, something like a small whine left Jisung’s mouth and Minho froze, not liking how the sound echoed in his head.

‘’H-hey, get up,’’ he breathed out, wiggling his arm to get Jisung to let go.

The other shook his head softly and Minho let out a sigh, ‘’Come on. You can sleep later okay? I promise,’’

That got Jisung to open his eyes, using his hold on the older’s arm to pull himself up and off the couch. He swerved to the right but corrected himself before Minho even had the chance to get up and steady him and said boy turning around, holding out his hand.

The sleeved of the hoodie Jisung was wearing reached almost the end of his fingertips, making him look even younger than he already did and Minho could barely stop himself from cooing at the sight.

Later.

He would worry about it later.

For now he accepted the hand and let himself get pulled off the couch, not commenting on how Jisung took a bit too long to let go of his hand.

Once they were out of the building, Minho hadn’t even had the time to pull the hood of his jacket over his head or Jisung was already glued to him again, clutching unto his right arm as they waddled through the snow.

If Minho didn’t know Jisung any better, he would almost start to think that Jisung actually liked him. To anyone passing they probably looked like great buddies, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Well, maybe not today but Minho had already settled with that and that it was probably just today. He was lowkey dreading the day Jisung was better and would go back to being annoying.

That was mean, to silently wish Jisung would be like this from now on even if it meant he wasn’t feeling well and Minho felt the shame crawl up his chest and around his neck.

No, he’d rather have Jisung being in peak condition and an asshole than him looking ready to collapse.

The way to Minho’s dorm was filled with a deafening silence and he was fine with that because he really needed his strength to focus on not tripping over whenever his vision went hazy. To add to it, Jisung kept swaying and dragging his feet and Minho was not going to let the poor guy trip and crash into the ground.

‘’Please tell me there’s an elevator,’’ Jisung groaned out as Minho dragged him into the building, the younger pulling down the scarf and thereby freeing his mouth.

Minho just shook his head because his throat was really starting to burn now and even the air passing it made it feel like someone was trying to sand down his vocal cords, or something like that.

Jisung let out a broken huff and tugged his arm, ‘’Carry me,’’

Minho came to a halt right in front of the stairs and turned his head to the side to look at the boy, ‘’I’m not going to carry you,’’

That really was a bridge too far.

Why would Jisung even ask that?

The younger didn’t seem to be very pleased with his answer and took a step closer to hug his arm with both of his own.

‘’Please? I’m really tired…,’’

Then Jisung let his head drop against Minho’s arm, shifting his head so he could maintain the eye-contact. His cheek was all squished and he looked so, so adorable and Minho’s fingers twitched. He really wanted to poke the younger’s free cheek right now.

‘’I am too, so no,’’ Minho squeezed out, ‘’We would definitely end up falling down the stairs so getting up those steps is your own responsibility kiddo,’’

The younger had the audacity to _pout_ before Minho saw his brows furrow and Jisung let out another cough. The boy whined once he was breathing normally again and the older really wished he would just stop doing that because it made him even dizzier than he already was.

‘’Who are you calling kiddo?,’’ Jisung croaked, finally lifting up his head, ‘’You’re only one year, ten months and twenty days older than me,’’

What?

Minho could already feel his features morph into confusion and he was sure Jisung saw because the boy suddenly looked quite panicked and recoiled back, his hands slipping off his arm as he took a step back. 

‘’You know my birthday?,’’ Minho whispered out, genuinely confused about what Jisung had said, ‘’And you even…,’’

It wasn’t a big deal. Knowing someone’s birthday wasn’t a big deal – most of the times it was _not knowing_ that was problematic – but Minho had never felt weirder about it than now.

Especially with Jisung’s panicked look and how his fingers had taken a tight hold of the sleeves of his puffy jacket. The younger was acting as if he had said something that he shouldn’t have.

But Minho didn’t get to ask the boy about how he knew his birthday and why he knew _exactly_ what their age difference was.

In the midst of Jisung clearly getting upset about what had slipped past his lips, the younger swerved to the right again and it was on instinct when Minho shot forwards, taking hold of Jisung’s upper arm and pulling him towards him in an attempt to steady the boy.

Of course, Minho had underestimated his strength and overestimated Jisung’s sturdiness and the boy ended up crashing right into his chest. 

Too close.

Jisung was too close.

But was he really? Because instead of getting anxious about it or his brain going into overdrive, he let the scent of lavender fill his nose and his foggy brain suddenly yelled at him that Jisung wasn’t close _enough_

‘’S-sorry,’ the younger stuttered as he tried to pull back.

Minho’s body moved on his own when he stopped the boy by wrapping his arms around him, letting his hand rest of the back of Jisung’s neck and the other gripping the back of his shoulder.

It wasn’t difficult to miss how Jisung tensed but Minho couldn’t be bothered by it.

It felt nice to hug Jisung. The boy seemed to fit into his embrace, but something still felt off. 

Too tiny.

Too brittle.

Jisung didn’t just look too small, he felt like it too. 

Why hadn’t he noticed it yesterday when he had lifted the boy? Why only now?

Something really wasn’t right.

And it wasn’t just the way Minho’s heart thumped against his ribcage when the younger softly gripped his sides and buried his head in his chest.

No.

It wasn’t Minho.

He was sure of it when he suddenly felt the boy shaking in his arms, shoulders moving up and down in a staggering manner.

Something was wrong with Jisung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't let this fool you
> 
> :)


	4. Double Entendre

It seemed to be forever that they stood there in front of the stairs.

Minho really didn’t know what to do with the crying boy in his arms and that scared him because he wasn’t all that great with comforting people. It wasn’t as if he was totally incapable, but it always felt awkward to him. 

He never knew what to say or what to do because there wasn’t a set manual on how to deal with crying people. No step one through five that he could follow that guaranteed success.

To add to it, it was Jisung of all people.

He had long since placed the boy into a box and now Jisung had started to crawl out of it and that meant that Minho would have to re-analyse the type of person Jisung was to place him back into, maybe, a different box.

He had no idea what was going on the boy’s head, especially not after all _that_. Jisung was an enigma, one Minho hadn’t felt the need to figure out before, but he very much felt the urge to now – for his own peace mostly.

But he figured it wasn’t the best time because the boy was still shaking and Minho didn’t want to upset him even further by selfishly investigating the issue. 

‘’Hey,’’ Minho softy tried as he pulled away a bit so he could see the younger’s face, ‘’Do you want to go home?,’’

Jisung tensed and the older knew that it hadn’t been the right thing to ask. It only got confirmed when the younger pushed against his chest, effectively making Minho let go before he took a step back, hastily wiping his face with his hand.

Minho caught the conflict painting the boy’s features and it pained him to see that Jisung was trying to choose the lesser of two evils while the tears still escaped his eyes.

He looked like he was suddenly so uncomfortable being here – credits to Minho probably - but apparently the idea of going home wasn’t all that appealing either.

He patiently waited for Jisung to answer – which he hoped the boy would do soon because the ache in Minho’s head was killing him – but he just stood there, staring at him with furrowed brows and trembling lips.

Jisung wasn’t going to make a decision anytime soon, it seemed.

So Minho took the decision for him and took a hold of Jisung’s hand, sending him a gentle smile before pulling him to the stairs. He had expected at least _some_ resistance but it wasn’t there. Instead, Jisung gripped onto his hand like he was scared Minho was going to disappear if he let go.

Minho saw it as a good sign and he gently tugged the boy up the stairs, making sure not to go too fast so that the younger wouldn’t trip. 

They were about halfway up when he felt Jisung shifting his hand and for a second Minho was scared that the boy was going to let go – he had no idea why the idea even scared him – and he came to a halt before turning to look at the boy.

Jisung’s head was down but Minho could clearly see the boy biting his lip again.

He didn’t get what Jisung seemed to be so anxious about all of a sudden, but he got his answer then the boy slid his fingers in between Minho’s and thereby successfully interlocking them.

To say Minho was surprised was an understatement. He was completely baffled by the younger’s behaviour.

Apparently he had been standing there, unmoving, for too long because Jisung let out a shaky sigh and made an attempt to pull his hand back. Minho’s mind sprung back to reality and he tightened his hold on the boy’s hand.

Jisung’s head shot up and Minho felt a chuckle bubble up when the boy titled his head in question, which was strange to Minho because it had been the younger that had been so bold to interlock their fingers.

Once again he wondered what Jisung was thinking.

‘’Come on,’’ Minho breathed out as he turned back around and pulled Jisung with him up the stairs.

About five minutes or so later, Minho had finally managed to get himself and Jisung to his floor and in front of his door, prying his key out of his pocket, which turned out to be quite difficult because Jisung was still holding his hand and he had to reach around himself to even _get_ to his pocket.

He should’ve just let Jisung’s hand go to make it easier but it was completely out of the question with the younger’s iron grip.

So it took him another minute to finally fish the key out of his pocket and unlock the door, dragging Jisung inside.

It was only after Minho closed the door that Jisung decided to let go, slowly retreating his hand with a sigh that didn’t go unnoticed by Minho. Before he could even question it though, the younger hissed and pressed his hands against his temples.

‘’Headache,’’ was the only thing Jisung muttered, one eye tightly shut as he looked up at Minho.

It was as if Jisung mentioning a headache made his body realise that he was quite sick as well and he felt the pressure behind his eyes built. Minho did his best to ignore it and focus on steadying his breathing – those stairs had really fucked him up in his current condition.

He hummed as a response and waited for Jisung to somewhat regain his bearings before speaking up again.

‘’I’ll see if I can find you some painkillers,’’

There was another nod as the boy slipped out of his coat and stepped out of his shoes – a pair of very ugly fuzzy socks revealing themselves to Minho – before softly waddling inside, leaving Minho behind.

The older decided that it was better to stop questioning Jisung’s behaviour at this point and so, he didn’t hurry to follow the boy and took his time unwrapping himself.

Once he set foot into his room, he found Jisung standing in the middle as he looked around.

Minho felt a bit weird seeing the boy standing there, in his apartment. The only people who had ever seen his place were Hyunjin and Woojin and that was it. To be honest, Minho wasn’t particularly fond of people being in his room because it was _his_ space. Of course he had kind off learned to let it go and he was fine with his friends being here but he couldn’t really call Jisung a friend.

Why had he even offered that Jisung could come with him in the first place?

Because he really didn’t feel all that comfortable. Maybe it was because it was someone that wasn’t one of his best friends, or maybe it was because it was Jisung. Minho was sure that if someone lacked the manners to keep himself from making any negative comment about his home, it would be Jisung. 

With a little sigh he stepped past the boy and to the bathroom to find some painkillers. It took him less than ten seconds to locate them and he popped out two of them. When he stepped back into the room, Jisung was turned towards him but not looking _at_ him.

Jisung’s hazy eyes darted around the room with clear uncertainty and the older couldn’t make out if the boy was curious or intimidated, but he settled for the former when a small smile tugged on the corners of Jisung’s lips.

Good.

That was good, right?

But just as he saw the boy opening his mouth to finally say something, his face paled and eyes grew big, almost looking panicked. For a second Minho wondered what was going on but then the boy doubled over ever so slightly and slapped a hand on his mouth.

Oh shit.

Minho rushed forward and got a hold of Jisung’s arm and dragged him over to the bathroom. It seemed that they had gotten there just on time because as soon as they stepped inside, Jisung ripped himself away from Minho’s hold and crashed down in his knees in front of the toilet.

And Minho was glad he could stomach seeing other people throw up because it sounded and looked like Jisung’s stomach was trying to work its way out the boy’s mouth. Not something most people were comfortable with witnessing.

It was on instinct that he dropped down behind the boy and lay a gentle hand on Jisung’s back, making circular motions in hopes of steadying the boy. He didn’t miss the trembling of Jisung’s body against his palm and he decided that he hated seeing the younger like this.

They just sat there for couple of minutes until the boy finally stopped heaving. Minho figured he should get Jisung some water to wash the acid down and he let his hand slide off the younger’s back before putting it on the floor to push himself back on his feet.

But then Jisung’s arm shot back like lightning and he gripped onto Minho’s sweatpants, fist balled and tightly holding onto the fabric.

‘’Don’t leave,’’ the boy whispered out and something in Minho’s chest did a flip.

‘’I’m just going to get you a glass of water, okay?,’’ Minho sighed, trying to ignore how his brain had suddenly started racing after hearing the boy’s fragile words, ‘’I’ll be right back. I promise,’’

He could see Jisung nod exactly _once_ \- clearly afraid to move too much – before letting go.

Minho pushed himself up and rushed to the kitchen, bumping his hip against the counter when a dizzy spell hit. He somehow managed to move through it and reach the tab, pulling out a glass from one of the cupboards.

Then he heard more coughing and gagging from the bathroom and he moved a bit faster. 

He tried not to spill the water as he patted back to the bathroom, which he fortunately didn’t because he didn’t feel up for having to mob his floor when he had other things to worry about.

Minho slowly sat down next to the younger and he saw that Jisung was crying again, wheezing as his face hovered over the toilet.

‘’F-fuck me,’’ the boy whimpered, voice raspy as a result of the acid that had passed his throat. 

Minho was glad that Jisung seemed okay enough to actually talk, but he could barely count that as a victory. So he patted his shoulder to get his attention and Jisung sluggishly turned his head, blinking sleepily as he looked at Minho.

‘’Drink,’’ was all Minho said before taking a hold of Jisung’s hand and softly prying it away from the toilet.

Jisung’s fingers were as cold as ice as he accepted the glass and Minho was already trying to remember where exactly he stored all his excess blankets.

The younger took tiny sips at first but then quickly downed the glass, letting out a long sigh when he was done.

And they just sat there for a little while again as Minho waited for Jisung to give him a hint on what he wanted. 

God did the boy look wrecked.

His eyes were bloodshot and Minho could actually _see_ the tearstains on his face. His skin seemed slightly blotchy and he felt so bad for the boy. Minho wasn’t sick all that often but he remembered that one time in high school when some very aggressive virus had knocked down half of his family. His father had been the only healthy one, of course, and that had so happened to be the week Minho had realised that karma didn’t always do its job properly.

It had been an awful week as he had been bedridden and aching and nauseous and even though he didn’t feel all that great right now, that one week took the crown.

Jisung was clearly worse off than Minho and the sympathy he felt for the boy skyrocketed when he saw Jisung tremble and his face ghostly pale.

He noticed how the boy’s hair was now sticking to his forehead as well and he didn’t really think as he reached out and pushed it to the side, strangely not bothered by Jisung’s sweat now sticking to his skin. The younger’s eyes fluttered closed and he let out a appreciative hum, almost leaning into the touch.

Minho’s heart was up his throat once he noticed what the heck he was doing and he retreated his hand and he swore he heard something like a whine leaving the younger’s throat.

‘’Y-you should take a shower,’’ he stuttered out as Jisung slowly opened his eyes again, looking like he wasn’t really present.

‘’I don’t want to,’’ the boy groaned out as he finally let go of the toilet and turned sideways to sit down a bit more comfortably.

Jisung looked _so_ tired and his skin was now totally void of that warm undertone he normally sported. To be honest, he looked like a walking corpse.

‘’Jisung, I know it’s difficult but you got to. You’ll feel way better afterwards. Trust me,’’

Minho could see that the boy was about to refuse again but he stopped himself, frowning before nodding.

‘’I should,’’ he stated as he took a hold of the handle of one of the drawers, pulling himself up.

Minho was up on his feet in no-time and took a hold of the boy’s arms to help him up and try to prevent him from crashing back to the floor.

‘’I’m going to get you some clothes. Right back,’’

Jisung hummed and let out a shaky sigh before running his hand through his hair.

It took Minho almost no time to grab whatever his hand would find and getting back into the bathroom. Jisung was standing up pretty straight and actually looked a bit better than before, eyes a bit more focussed as he downed another glass of water he had apparently poured himself.

‘’These will probably be a bit too big but I don’t think you’ll find that problematic,’’’ Minho said as he dumped the pile of clothes on the dresser before grabbing a towel from the pile on his left, ‘’There’s a spare toothbrush in the lowest drawer. Just let me know if you need something else. I’ll be right outside the door,’’  
The younger nodded and accepted the towel, muttering a small thanks before Minho stepped out.

It was when he finally heard the shower running that Minho’s body reminded him that he had a fever as well and his vision gave out for a second. He decided that it was best if he’d just sit down and so he did, leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door just in case. The last thing he wanted was Jisung passing out in the shower and only finding out about it after too many minutes.

‘’Let me know if you need any help okay?,’’ Minho shouted through the door, closing his eyes as he leaned his head back.

He thought he heard something drop and he shot his eyes open, ‘’Jisung? You okay in there?,’’

‘’Y-yeah. Just dropped the shampoo,’’ the younger weakly shouted back and Minho swore he had heard some cursing follow.

Minho must’ve been partially unconscious for a little while because suddenly the door next to him creaked open and when he turned to look, Jisung slowly waddled out. His hair was still slightly wet and hanging in his eyes, little droplets forming dark circles on the grey t-shirt.

Minho couldn’t help but snort when Jisung looked like he was drowning in fabric, the shirt reaching the tips of his fingers and sweatpants bundling up at the ankles.

‘’What are you laughing at?,’’ Jisung softly muttered, the slight blush creeping up his face not going unnoticed by the older.

Minho shook his head and pulled himself back to his feet, ‘’Nothing,’’

He continued to instruct Jisung to make himself at home before slipping into the shower himself. It was a couple of minutes later that he emerged from the bathroom, only to find Jisung curled up on the couch.

He seemed to be asleep and as much as Minho wanted him to get as much sleep as possible, they had to eat something. He himself wasn’t all that hungry but he had enough knowledge to know that his body really needed nutrients to fight off whatever virus they had. 

So after dumping his towel on the radiator, he made his way to the couch and crouched down in front of the younger. Minho contemplated the best way to wake Jisung up, but in the midst of that his mind wandered off and he caught himself observing the younger’s face.

Even though Jisung was sick and his face unnaturally flushed, there was still something about his face that drew Minho in. Maybe it was the cheeks or the eyelashes, but whatever it was, it felt like he finally saw Jisung. With the boy’s walls down like this, Minho could _look_ without having to fear some kind of repercussion, without the younger calling him out and making a big deal out of it.

And it was for the first time that Minho noticed that Jisung was actually really attractive. Sure, it had crossed his mind before but in the safe confines of his room he finally allowed that thought in without trying to push it away.

He let out a sigh and pushed the younger’s hair out of his face once again.

It really was a shame that the boy’s personality was so shitty most of the time.

Jisung stirred a bit and Minho retreated his hand, finding himself frozen as the boy’s eyes fluttered open and met his. 

‘’Hyung?,’’ the boy almost whispered as he brought a hand to his face to rub one of his eyes.

The word sounded incredibly foreign to Minho’s ears - especially coming from Jisung – that it felt like a punch in the gut. No bad per se but it caused his brain to short-cut for a bit. In no way was it really appropriate for Jisung to call him that because it implied some sort of closer relationship than they had. However, he couldn’t find it in himself to be pissed off about it., not when the younger looked insanely adorable at the moment.

Jisung didn’t seem to register what he had said so Minho decided not to comment on it. Things were fairly comfortable at the moment and he really didn’t feel like making it awkward.

‘’Sorry for waking you up but I was gonna make some food. What do you want?,’’ he asked as he got back up to his feet.

Jisung sat back up and shrugged his shoulders, ‘’Nothing,’’

Minho was already standing in the kitchen and going through the cabinets, finding three packets of ramen and even though it wasn’t ideal, he wasn’t going to actually cook up a whole dinner. He was too tired for that, especially with having an almost-dead squirrel sitting in his living room.

And even if he wanted to, he didn’t have anything to cook anyways.

‘’I got ramen. Are you okay with seafood flavour?,’’ Minho asked over his shoulder as he fished a pot out of the dishwasher, filling it with water before dumping it on the stove.

He could hear soft footsteps patter towards him and then Jisung was standing next to him, leaning against the counter, ‘’I appreciate the effort but I really don’t want anything,’’

Minho’s brow shot up and he turned towards the younger.

‘’Don’t be stupid. You need to eat,’’

Jisung shrugged again and turned his attention to his fingernails, ‘’I don’t want to,’’

Now the older was getting a bit upset.

‘’Come on Jisung. You have to eat something, especially after your body made sure your stomach is completely empty,’’ Minho replied as he fully turned to the boy, arms crossed.

‘’I already said I don’t want to eat,’’ Jisung huffed back, his hands placed on his hips as if that was going to win him this insanely stupid argument.

Minho had _almost_ forgotten how bratty the younger could be.

But he really didn’t feel up for turning this into a full on fight so he contemplated his options, which were very limited. After all, he couldn’t physically force the younger to eat and they were in no way close enough to ask Jisung to eat to do Minho a favour.

Technically he could just shrug his shoulders and let the boy be – he wasn’t the younger’s mom or something – but he wasn’t going to let Jisung’s condition get even worse. 

‘’Do you like ice cream?,’’

Jisung perked up slightly, eyes narrowing again before he let his arms drop and nodded.

‘’Food first, then ice cream,’’ Minho deadpanned and the younger nodded again. God did Minho feel like a mom right now.

Jisung insisted on taking the couch – it took Minho a lot of energy to figure out what the half-asleep boy had mumbled – and Minho tossed him a couple of blankets, pointing to a cabinet and telling Jisung that there were more blankets tucked away over there if he’d need more.

And then finally, Minho let himself fall down on his bed with a tired sigh. A quick glance at the clock told him that it wasn’t even two in the afternoon yet but it felt as if he’d spend the whole day running a marathon.

Dragging Jisung around wasn’t that much different but at least he had gotten his karma points for the day.

However, he wasn’t going to deny that he liked that he had seen a different side of Jisung and he didn’t care if it was fever-induced or not.

So he accepted the smile tugging at his lips as he thought about the boy softly snoring away on his couch.

Maybe, they’d finally be able to move past this passive-aggressive vibe.

He really liked that idea.

Minho startled awake when a loud crash came from the kitchen. 

He shot up and threw himself out of bed on autopilot, his brain blank and fuzzy. He barely noticed how cold he was as he shuffled to where the sound had come from – the possibility of it being a burglar not even crossing his mind – and when he peeked around the corner, he saw Jisung standing in the middle of the kitchen.

Apparently he had dropped a glass because the floor around his feet was covered in tiny shatters, Jisung looking down at his feet in silence.

‘’Don’t move,’’ Minho rasped out, afraid that as soon as Jisung would move his feet he’d step into the glass. 

The younger nodded but didn’t look up from the floor as Minho shuffled around to get his dustpan.

‘’You are so high-maintenance,’’ Minho groaned under his breath as he stalked back into the kitchen.

He swiftly swept up the pieces of glass and discarded them in the bin before turning to Jisung. The younger was looking at him with a sheepish little smile, eyes dazed and unfocussed.

‘’Are you okay?,’’ Minho tried.

Jisung didn’t answer and turned his focus to something on his right. Minho followed his line of sight but there was nothing there. The slight grogginess from getting woken up so suddenly got replaced by worry and he tossed the dustpan on the counter before taking a step closer to the boy, ‘’Jisung?,’’

Still no response. 

Was Jisung even awake?

‘’Don’t tell me you sleepwalk or something,’’

Minho knew that he was probably being a tad bit dramatic, but it really seemed like Jisung wasn’t all there.

He gave up on trying to have a conversation and took a hold of the boy’s hand. That got the younger to finally move again. Well, Jisung blinked sheepishly just tilted his head in question, but that was enough for now.

‘’Let’s get you back to bed,’’ Minho sighted out, gently tugging the boy out of the kitchen.

In his sleepy haze, Minho ended up dragging Jisung to his bed and pushed the boy down until he was laying down, pulling the blanket up to his chin.

It was only when Jisung stared up at him with a tiny smile that Minho realised that his bed was now no longer available and that he’d have to resume his sleep on the couch.

The prospect of aching muscles and stiff joints didn’t really do it for him and he hung his head.

‘’Hyung?,’’

It had been muttered so quietly than Minho almost hadn’t caught it.

But he had and he cursed his chest for tightening.

"You too," Jisung mumbled as he pulled his arms out from under the covers and looked up at him with a soft gaze and Minho thought that he was going insane.

Jisung, Han fucking Jisung, was actually laying in his bed, eyes glazed over by the haze of a fever - Minho ignored how his throat seemed to close up on him as the younger’s eyelashes touched his cheek as he slowly blinked - and reaching out his arms towards the older. 

Minho didn't quite get what Jisung had meant by that but then the grabby-hands came, paired with a dissatisfied sound and Minho almost choked on his own spit.

"Hurry up... I’m cold," the younger whined as he continued with the grabby-hands and if Minho didn't know any better, he would say that Jisung was on the verge of crying. There was that strange pang in his chest again and it felt as if the air got knocked out of his lungs. 

‘’G-go back to sleep,’’ Minho forced out of his throat as he patted the boy’s head before turning around and stalking over to the couch.

His ears were ringing from the blood rushing through his veins as plopped down, hearing a last _‘you’re mean’_ from Jisung and then nothing.

When Minho woke up the following morning – his muscles tense and joints stiff much like he had anticipated – Jisung was nowhere to be found and his neatly made bed was enough to tell him that Jisung had managed to disappear without waking him up.

For a second Minho wondered if he had made up yesterday, if it had been some fucked-up fever dream, but the little post it stuck to the fridge he saw when he stumbled into the kitchen told him it wasn’t.

_’’Thanks. And you should check your phone, it kept ringing this morning’’  
\- Jisung_

That was it. No more, no less.

As he forced himself to eat some breakfast, he wondered if Jisung had been feeling okay enough to actually make the trip home on his own. Not that Minho would have driven him there or something but it still gnawed at his insides.

Moreover, he was anxious.

He didn’t know what to expect the next time he’d see Jisung.

Would the boy go back to normal? Would things be incredibly awkward? Or would they actually be able to get along now?

He didn’t know.

But now that he was alone in his apartment again, he had to admit that he missed Jisung. 

Just a tiny bit.


	5. Never Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From zero to a hundred real quick...  
Fun times.

It was three days later that Minho was finally able to get back into the company and rehearse, knowing full well that he really couldn’t spend another day in bed without causing the company major inconvenience.

Woojin hadn’t been all that happy but understood and had withheld any kind of lecture once Minho had waddled into the dressing room. Hyunjin had been a bit more vocal and cussed out the company for not taking caring enough about their dancers but Minho had let the younger rant.

The boy had been a bit upset that Minho hadn’t let Mr. Park call either of them to accompany him home, but after a couple of apologies and promises of chicken they had let him off.

For some reason, Minho found himself unable to inform the two that Jisung had ended up sleeping over at his place.

He told himself that it just wasn’t that important to share and let it be.

Minho was now regretting that choice because he was standing in the room with Jisung next to him – the boy seemingly all better – and his mind just kept replaying the highlights of the boy in his apartment and he would have loved to hear Woojin’s advice on the matter before stepping into the room.

‘’I hate to tell you kids this because you probably already realised this,’’ Mr. Park started off, ‘’But we can’t permit any of you missing rehearsals from this point on if we don’t want to push back the performance. And since it’s a Christmas special, we really can’t do that,’’

Minho nodded his head, knowing full well that the man spoke nothing but sensible truth. 

He could hear Jisung letting out a hum next to him, indicating that he understood the man as well.

‘’Great. Then I suggest you two warm up so we can get started,’’ the man said as he walked over to the audio-guy at the back.

Minho deflated and let out little cough – a remnant of the last couple of days – before turning to his right. He got halted by a hand gently landing on his shoulder and he whipped his head around, seeing Jisung looking at him with something that looked like a mix between curiosity and… wonder?

‘’Are you okay?,’’ the boy softly asked, ‘’Did you get enough sleep?,’’

The older was stunned for a second but managed to nod at the younger. Jisung then smiled and let his hand slip off Minho’s shoulder, fingers almost trailing down his arm on accident, ‘’Good. I’m glad,’’

Then Jisung was gone from his side and stretching his body, leaving Minho confused.

Sure, he had expected something to change – more like hoped – but there was still this sliver of doubt in the back of his mind, telling him that Jisung had been acting like that because of his fever and nothing else. That Jisung would go back to how he always was and they would forget anything had ever happened.

But it seemed like that wasn’t going to be the case and Minho wondered why Jisung was suddenly capable of being a somewhat decent human being towards the older. 

Not that he was complaining, but it couldn’t be that a couple of hours of spending time together had made the younger change so drastically.

Minho didn’t get to dwell on the issue for much longer because Mr. Park clapped his hands and called them to the middle of the room.

It was two hours later that Minho had finally learned the whole choreography and much to his delight, it had turned out to be less intimidating than he had initially thought. To add to his content, Jisung had been incredibly patient and understanding as Minho had worked his ass off to get it right.

_’’It’s a difficult part so take your time. We can run it through another time if you want?’’_

_’’Your arm goes up between the third and fourth count. Here, let me show you’’_

_’’Do you want to take a break? We got plenty of time so you can take it easy’’_

And all those things had been said with adorable smiles and gentle touches and Minho was weirded out, but didn’t dare to question it.

So he didn’t bother to get deeper into it when Jisung had dragged him to the couch in the back of the room and pushed him onto it before digging out a bottle of water out of his bag and throwing it to Minho.

‘’I think it went great, don’t you think?,’’ Jisung panted as he sat down on the floor near Minho, brows furrowed in concentration as he tried his best to get the cap off his water bottle.

Minho took a few swigs of his own bottle and observed the younger, the boy looking impossibly adorable and child-like in his endeavour to get the bottle open.

‘’Did you hit your head or something?,’’ he rushed out without thinking.

Well, he had thought it but hadn’t meant to ask the boy.

Jisung looked up in surprise, eyes blown wide and he tilted his head at Minho, seemingly confused by the question.

‘’No, I didn’t. Why would you think so?,’’ the younger asked, still looking too cute with his bangs sticking to his forehead and oversized t-shirt hanging of his body.

‘’Never mind,’’ Minho grumbled under his breath as he reached out to take the bottle out of the younger’s hands, swiftly opening it before thrusting it back into the boy’s hands, ‘’It doesn’t matter anyways,’’

Jisung eyed him with suspicion and let out a huff before turning his head away and gulping down the liquid. 

Minho let himself fall back into the couch and contemplated straight up asking the younger what was up with his change of behaviour, but he felt relatively happy right now and didn’t want to ruin the moment by possibly starting a conversation that could turn south pretty quickly.

‘’By the way,’’ Jisung muttered, ‘’Thanks and sorry,’’

That caught Minho’s attention and he turned his head to look at the boy.

Jisung ducked his head down and started tracing invisible lines on the floor, ‘’Thanks for putting up with me a couple of days ago. I know I was probably a real pain in the ass,’’

Minho was about to confirm that statement but closed his mouth because Jisung was actually being genuine right now and it would be kind of a dick-move to be mean.

‘’And I’m sorry,’’ the boy continued.

‘’For what?,’’ Minho asked, sitting up so he could see the boy better.

Jisung was now properly curled up on himself and biting his lip, still evading Minho’s eyes.

‘’Just… sorry,’’

Minho could let it slip – something he has been doing quite a lot with the boy lately – but this burning ache to know what Jisung was apologizing for _exactly_ was too much to handle, so he let himself slide off the couch to sit on the floor next to the boy.

He swore he saw Jisung flinch.

‘’What are you sorry for?,’’

It had sounded more demanding than Minho had intended but there was no going back now, even if it seemed like Jisung shrunk only more and moved away from Minho ever so slightly.

To be honest, the younger should have been sorry for a lot of things and if he was going to apologize, Minho sure as hell would like Jisung to actually apologize for something specific.

‘’Jisung,’’

There was an uncomfortable silence and Minho was just about ready to explode when the boy finally opened his mouth.

‘’Forget about it,’’ the boy rushed out.

And just like that, Jisung was up on his feet and stepped around Minho to get to his bag. The older followed the movement and suddenly felt his breathing getting laboured and his temper flaring up.

He had that from his dad and hated it, but he was suddenly just so fed up with the younger, like the dismissal had flipped a switch inside him.

First Jisung had been nothing short of mean to him without a reason, then he suddenly wanted to act as if they were all chummy and now he couldn’t get over his ego to apologize?

Minho got reminded of his frustration and confusion and Jisung was the cause of all of it and therefor the perfect person to take it out on.

‘’No Jisung. What are you sorry for?,’’ Minho hissed as he sprung up as well, ‘’Want me to help out? How about saying sorry for being such an asshole all the time? How about saying sorry for picking fight after fight with me for no good reason? How about getting over that ego of yours and try being nice for once!,’’

Minho noticed the younger freezing but it did nothing to stop the heath reaching his face.

‘’I have never done anything bad to you so I really don’t understand why you’re always being such a jerk to me. From the beginning you have been nothing but an entitled brat who thinks their better than everyone else in this company! Maybe it’s because you feel threatened by the fact that I used to have the position you hold now, but you don’t need to be because everyone and their mom knows my knee is fucked up and even if it wasn’t, you still have your mommy as a board member to make sure you keep your position,’’

‘’Shut up,’’ Jisung whispered out, barely audible but so loud in Minho’s ears.

The younger tried to step passed him again but Minho wasn’t going to let the boy run away now, not when the floodgates had finally opened. He grabbed the younger’s arm and ignored the sharp intake of air, digging his fingers into Jisung’s arm instead.

‘’No, you do not get to tell me to shut up. God, do you know many people loathe working with you? They all act like they like you but no one really does and it’s really pathetic how you don’t even seem to notice how people talk behind your back all the time,’’

‘’Stop,’’ Jisung muttered as he spun around, eyes narrowed in a glare but suspiciously wet.

Not that Minho cared.

It was as if all the stress from the last week decided to interfere with his rational thinking.

‘’You are so annoying! You come here every day, barging in like you own the place like some spoiled rich kid and just when I thought you were better than that, you can’t get over that damn ego of yours and apologize to me!,’’ 

Minho was screaming at this point and deep down he knew it wasn’t fair. Did it bother him though? No. Jisung was not going to run away without facing the consequences of his behaviour. Someone had to make it clear to the boy that it wouldn’t fly.

‘’You must think you’re so great, acting all high and mighty like you’re the only one that deserves to be here while that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Unlike you, the rest of us worked our ass off to get where we are,’’

‘’Fuck you! Don’t talk like you know anything about me!,’’ Jisung cried out as he tried to yank his arm away, ‘’Let me go!,’’

But Minho was blinded by this flood of frustration and anger and tightened his grip.

However, a pained whimper left the boy’s lips and Minho’s rage came to a grinding halt.

Then the choked sobs finally made their way into his ears and Minho could _see_ again and what he saw was a crying Jisung, eyes blown wide in panic and fear and looking oh so tiny, cowering away from Minho and muscles tense.

He retracted his hand as if he had touched fire and Jisung almost dropped to the floor but managed to steady himself.

‘’S-sorry,’’ was all that the boy choked out before stumbling out of the room, leaving Minho in the aftermath of the words that had come out of his mouth.

It took him a while but then the heath vanished like someone had splashed ice-cold water over him and he shivered, dread creeping it’s way into his every fibre and morphing into guilt.

He hadn’t meant to say those things. 

He hadn’t meant to make the boy cry.

But he had just been so upset and done and confused by whatever was going on and apparently he took more after his father than he liked to admit.

And that was really scary.

Minho stared at the floor and felt his eyes well up.

Fuck.

Why the fuck was he getting so upset about it? Sure, he could have been a bit nicer but someone had to be real with the boy for once, right?

But that wasn’t Minho’s place. He had no right to scream those things, especially because those were just rumours and his own interpretation and he didn’t even really know Jisung.

‘’Dammit,’ he muttered to himself as he ran his hand over his face.

He needed to talk to someone.

He needed someone to help him figure out the thoughts and feelings regarding the younger and he would be damned if he let it built up even more. 

This wasn’t him.

He had never in his life exploded like that. He had a temper but he was a master in keeping it in check around others – he let that one time he had ripped a couple of posters off his bedroom wall when he was still in high school slip – and opted to tuck it away.

So with trembling fingers he dug his phone out of his pocket and went through his contacts, ending at Woojin’s name and pressing ‘call’ before he could even really think about it.

Woojin would know what to do.

Woojin would be able to explain it to him, whatever ‘it’ was.

It took a couple of rings but then the older picked up, greeting Minho with a tone as if he had already expected the younger to call him. How Woojin knew, Minho didn’t understand but that was just how Woojin worked. If the older would tell him he had some sort of superpower, Minho wouldn’t even be surprised at this point.

‘’Hyung, are you busy?,’’

_’’For you, never. I’ll be over at your place in half an hour okay?,’’_ Woojin replied, a faint rustling in the background.

Minho was about to burst out crying right then and there but managed a small ‘okay’ before hanging up. 

It was fifteen minutes later that Minho dragged himself into his apartment, feeling utterly exhausted. His mind only made it worse by replaying the scene over and over again and with every recap, his throat closed up even more and the dread gnawing at his brain got worse and worse.

In the moment he had felt justified, but there was none of that left right now. The only thing that was left was the image of Jisung cowering away in fear and how own words echoing in his head.

He ended up lying on the couch and trying to keep his breathing steady, not even bothering to take off his jacket.

It was when he heard the door unlock and the rustling of clothes that he opened his eyes again. When he turned his head he was met by Woojin stepping out of his shoes and a plastic bag dangling from his arm.

Minho sat up and let out another heavy sigh, alerting Woojin. The older turned to look at him and a sympathetic smile tugged at his lips.

‘’Hey, I brought you some food and a blueberry smoothie from your favourite place,’’ the older said as he walked over to Minho, dumping the plastic bag on the little table in front of the couch.

‘’Thanks,’’ 

The next couple of minutes were spend in silence as Minho sipped away at the drink and Woojin occasionally stole a bit of food.

‘’So, what’s up?,’’ Woojin asked as he turned to face Minho, throwing his chopsticks down on the table.

Minho shrugged his shoulders, not really knowing how to answer that question. After all, he didn’t know what was up either. He had just called Woojin on complete impulse. 

‘’Let me guess. Is it about Jisung?,’’

Woojin needed to stop being so good at reading his mind.

Minho let out a groan and flopped back onto the couch, ‘’How did you know?,’’

He looked at Woojin and saw that same sympathetic smile, but his eyes were set in worry.

‘’Well, I saw Jisung practically run out of the building earlier and he didn’t look all that great and I know you guys had rehearsals this afternoon and one plus one makes two,’’ the older said, scooting closer to prod at Minho’s knee again.

It had started to act up again during the fever and he had mentioned it to his friends and of course Woojin was going to use every change he had to massage said knee to make it a bit more bearable.

‘’It’s just…,’’ Minho geared up, trying to sort out what he actually wanted to say, ‘’I just don’t get him. First he’s just mean to me all the time and then when I showed up for practise a couple of days ago it turned out he was really sick as well and he was suddenly okay to talk with and my stupid ass thought it was a good idea to drag him back to my apartment because he didn’t seem to want to go back home and then it was like he did a compete one-eighty and was actually pretty nice and fun to be around even though he was such a pain in the ass to take care of and then I got confused because he kept calling me ‘hyung’ while looking insanely adorable and now he acts as if we are buddies or something but then when he tries to apologize for being such an ass before he chickens out and I got angry and maybe said some things I shouldn’t have or even meant and I made him cry and you should have seen how scared he looked and now I’m angry at myself for reacting like that because I’m scared that I’m slowly going to turn into my father and I don’t want that to happen and that reminds me I need to get that restraining order fixed because it’s almost the twentieth and I should call my mom as well and I’m really tired right now and I don’t know what to do,’’

Minho was struggling for air after his ramble and he felt strangely empty, but in the good way.

He could practically _hear_ Woojin think about what Minho had just said and he couldn’t bring himself to look at the older, shame and the fear of the older’s reaction too much.

‘’How come you didn’t tell me or Hyunjin that you took Jisung back here when you guys were sick?,’’

Minho shrunk at the words, ‘’Because it was stupid. I wasn’t in my right mind,’’

‘’No it’s not. It’s not stupid. I think it was very nice of you to do that Minho,’’

The younger let out a huff and shook his head, ‘’It doesn’t matter anyways. In the end it didn’t do anything but make things worse,’’

‘’Minho,’’ Woojin carefully started off, ‘’I understand that it’s frustrating, but Jisung surely has his reasons for acting the way he does. I said it before, that Jisung really is a good kid so I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than you know. And it’s not my place to tell you anything. Just know that Jisung’s life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine either. You guys may be more similar than you know,’’

Minho managed to squeeze out a hum.

‘’However, that doesn’t mean that I approve of how Jisung behaves towards you, but I do think that you should start off by apologizing and see how to go from there. And I think it would be a good idea if you try to figure out what it is that you want,’’

‘’What do you mean?,’’

Woojin tapped his shoulder and Minho turned his head to look at the older.

‘’What it is that you want to accomplish? Do you want Jisung to apologize to you as well? Do you want to go back to how it was before or do you want something else? Do you want to be friends? What do you want?,’’

Minho wanted to have a proper conversation with Jisung and try to understand him. 

What he wanted on the long run, he hadn’t figured that one out yet.

The next day, Jisung showed up late and with dark circles under his eyes and avoided looking at Minho like he was the plague.

Minho was sure he didn’t look all that better either because he had been pacing around his apartment all night, chastising himself for screaming at the boy when he really didn’t know anything about Jisung like Woojin had drilled into his head.

He tried to catch the boy’s attention during their warm-up but Jisung kept staring at himself through the mirror, a frown on his face and eyes distant.

And during their rehearsal, the boy didn’t utter a single word or made any sound and the guilt only grew heavier.

They somehow managed to get through it all without neither of them shying away from each other but it really didn’t sit well with Minho so when Miss Kim finally called it quits, Minho didn’t hesitate to stalk over to the younger.

‘’I’m sorry,’’ he rushed out as Jisung got up from the floor after tying his shoes, ‘’I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that yesterday,’’

Minho’s heart was up in his throat once again as he waited for Jisung’s response, but the younger didn’t even look at him and walked over to the couch, throwing his jacket into his bag before slinging the thing over his shoulder.

‘’Jisung?,’’ the older tried again, ‘’I mean it. I’m really sorry,’’

The younger finally looked at him but to Minho it felt like Jisung wasn’t really _seeing_ him. Minho could see the boys eye twitch before he broke eye-contact and looked at the phone in his hand.

‘’I’m not mad at you,’’ Jisung spoke out, voice steady but incredibly cold, ‘’You were totally right anyways,’’

Wait. 

‘’No, no I wasn’t. I didn’t mean it,’’ Minho rushed out, not liking the way Jisung’s eyes lacked a certain sparkle.

The boy waved dismissively as he slowly moved to the door, ‘’It doesn’t matter. It was my own fault for thinking it was the proper way to deal with things. I was in the wrong so just forget about it,’’

Minho stepped to the side to block the youngers way, ‘’What? What do you-,’’

‘’Now, if you’ll excuse me,’’ Jisung intercepted, eyes set on the door behind Minho’s back, ‘’I have got things to do,’’

‘’Hold up. Can’t we just talk for a minute? I’m really trying my best here,’’ Minho rushed out, desperate to make amends.

‘’I’m trying my best as well so no. Don’t worry about it and just blame me, it’s better that way,’’

Minho was about to open his mouth to ask Jisung to stop being so damn vague when he suddenly heard the door behind him open.

‘’Jisung, who are you talking to?,’’ a voice interrupted.

He saw Jisung’s eyes widen and dart from his face to the person behind him and something in the boy’s face changed. Minho furrowed his brows and turned around to see who it was. He found a middle-aged woman standing in the doorway, dressed in a white blouse and grey pencil-skirt. Her hair was up in a bun and paired with a pair of black high-heels it looked like she was of some sort of importance.

‘’Ahhh, this must me the Mr. Lee people talk so highly about,’’ the woman continued as she stepped into the room, ‘’I didn’t know you were friends Jisung,’’

For some reason the woman thought it was necessary to glare at Minho and he frowned. He couldn’t remember ever seeing the woman so what he had ever done to her to make her react to him like that, he didn’t know.

‘’Mom, we’re just partners for the piece,’’ Jisung breathed out, a bit unsteady if you asked Minho ‘’He’s not my friend,’’

Mom?

What the fuck?

Minho spun his head back to Jisung and that previous cold and distant look had morphed into something Minho could only identify as _fear_.

‘’Are you sure?, ‘’ the woman continued, voice laced with venom, ‘’Because that’s exactly what you said about that one boy back in high school,’’

Minho heard Jisung’s breath hitch and he wondered what he fuck the woman had meant by that and why the younger reacted the way that he did.

The woman eyed Minho up and down with her face all scrunched up like he was some sort of insect and Minho felt offended. 

What was up with this woman?

‘’Well Jisung, we have that dinner with CEO Kim so I’d appreciate it if you could say goodbye to Mr. Lee and get to the car,’’

Jisung pushed passed Minho and was out of the room in no time, the woman – Jisung’s mother – sending Minho a very fake smile before making her way out as well.

The door closed a bit too aggressively and he heard heels clicking on the floor.

Bitch.

If that was how Jisung’s mom was all the time, Minho felt sorry for the boy. There was something incredibly intimidating about the woman that had made the air feel stuffy. He didn’t like it. It reminded him of his father and that was when Minho realised Woojin probably knew more than he let on because his words suddenly seemed to make more sense.

Maybe Minho and Jisung weren’t all that different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter:  
Drunk Minsung?? dunno yet...  
(watch me throw just about every cliché trope in this fic)


	6. Behind Closed Doors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive.  
Sorry, I had a major writer's block and nothing worked out :/  
Anyways,  
I'm serving you a chapter in Jisung's point of view, probably the only one you'll get so that's why its so long and basically everything you need to know about Jisung xp

‘’Stop slouching,’’ a voice hissed in his ear, sharp but quiet enough for only him to hear.

Jisung immediately jerked up after hearing his mother, internally wincing when the stiff collar of his dress shirt dug into his throat and the label of his jacket scratched the back of his neck.

God did he want to go home.

But he was currently stuck at dinner in some fancy restaurant, his parents sitting on his right and Mr. Kim and his wife on the other side of the table and about a dozen of dishes in front of him. 

The food was good – well, what he could actually eat - but that was the only good point about being here.

His mother had been bitching about a certain person ever since they’d left the company, the suit that she had thrusted in his hands was itchy and too flashy – he liked red, but a red suit? – and he just could feel the gazes of other people on his back, Mr. Kim had been drinking a bit too much and whenever he laughed it hurt Jisung’s ears, his father had barely said a word to him ever since he had joined them after work…

And he overall felt like crap already and really didn’t want to be here.

Because unlike popular belief, he hated the kind of ‘luxurious’ life he had and everything that came with it. He’d rather be in his room right now, binge-watching whatever piqued his interest and shoving some cheap and totally unhealthy cheeseburger down his throat.

He’d kill for a cheeseburger at this point - the last time he had eaten one was back in middle school? - Or fries, or a pizza. Hell, even just instant ramen sounded great. Basically, anything that wasn’t salad or chicken breast or some organic, low-calorie crap would do. 

‘’So Jisung,’’ Mrs. Kim cleared her throat, placing her champagne glass back down, ‘’Your mother told me you are the lead in the new piece?,’’

The sudden question startled him and he almost choked on a cucumber slice but managed to somewhat smoothly regain his composure.

‘’He is,’’ His mother replied before Jisung even had a chance to respond, ‘’But we didn’t expect anything else. He _is_ the best in the company of course. It would have greatly concerned me if he hadn’t gotten the part,’’

Yeah sure.

Because that would surely damage the family name’s reputation. After all, his father was one of the greatest dancers the company had every had back in the early eighties before retiring from dancing and of course his son had to follow in his footsteps.

Not that Jisung didn’t like what he did, but it rubbed him the wrong way when people saw him as a young version of his father. They expected him to be just as good, if not better, and he wished people would stop reminding him of that because he was upsettingly close to snapping.

And he definitely wasn’t the best in the company. He was well aware of that even though he did end up getting the important parts more often than not. 

No.

He wasn’t the best when there was Woojin who aced about everything he did. Or Lucas, who always managed to make the moves his own in less than half a day, or Rocky who was so versatile that it didn’t matter what style he did because it always looked like he was a master in it, or Hyunjin who always emitted such a charismatic vibe that you couldn’t help but watch eagerly.

Or Minho.

Minho could do everything even when he wasn’t supposed to be able to do said everything.

Jisung still remembered how his heart had dropped after the news had spread in the community that the older was going on hiatus after tearing a couple of ligaments in his knee, needing almost a full year to rehabilitate.

He had been really scared Minho would never dance again.

‘’You are so lucky with your parents. Having a great network can really get you places,’’ Mr. Kim so kindly laughed out, Jisung jolting in his chair for about the millionth time tonight. 

He didn’t want it.

His parents and their connections did nothing but upset him on a daily basis but it wasn’t like he could say any of that out loud of course.

Fucking hated it.

Because people never gave him credit for his own hard work. 

He had worked his ass off to get where he was and yes, sometimes the circumstances to small victories were a bit shady to say the least, but he had done most of it himself.

But no one seemed to care about that. All everyone seemed to focus on was the fact that he was his parents’ son and the perks that came with it.

The topic of the conversation had changed already and Jisung was glad because he felt the urge to scream in their faces and storm out and move to the other side of the globe.

He was getting really tired of it all.

No matter how much he tried his best, things were never good enough. _He_ was never good enough. Apparently he was just a rich boy, a spoiled brat, annoying, acting like he was better than everyone else…

Or so he had been told.

Without thinking about it, he reached for his wrist with his other hand and gently rubbed it. The motion felt oddly soothing even though a sharp pain occasionally jolted him.

But he was the one to blame for it.

He should’ve just apologized.

Or he should’ve just ignored the older from day one.

Even better; he should’ve never attended that national competition when he was ten years old. 

‘’If you’d excuse me,’’ Jisung interrupted the conversation, gaining the other adult’s attention, ‘’I’m going to quickly freshen up,’’

From the corner of his eyes he saw his parents nod absentmindedly as they continued their conversation.

Jisung took the opportunity to swiftly get out of his chair and swerve his way around the other tables to get to the restroom, noticing how badly he stood out with his red suit in a classy black and white restaurant and how people stared at him.

He hated being the centre of attention when he wasn’t actually performing. And even when he was he felt uncomfortable if he could actually see the faces of the people in the audience.

It had gotten more bearable over the years but it had never really left, that feeling of dozens of eyes judging his every move.

If anybody knew about that they’d probably laugh at him, especially because he was asking for attention with the job he had. They’d tell him he brought it upon himself and that he should’ve chosen to do something else but there was nothing else he really _could_ do. 

His whole life had been revolving around dancing for as long as he could remember and he really did love it, but he had to admit that sometimes he wondered if it had been a good idea to make it his career and not just a personal hobby.

But then he’d get into the practise room, one of the professors passionately explaining about the moves and the thoughts behind them, telling the story behind the piece and the general vibe and every cell in Jisung’s body would start tingling with excitement.

Then it would be weeks and weeks of slaving away but it would only fuel his passion and he’d lose himself in the choreo and music. Then performances followed and his worries about the people watching him would disappear as soon as the first measure started and he made the first move.

And just like that, his previous doubts would be forgotten.

But right now he couldn’t find that.

Everything had been smooth-sailing until Felix was out and now it was all one big mess, stressing him out like no tomorrow and doing more damage than he could really handle.

He had to try to keep his pace even and not straight-up run to the restroom, but he found himself speeding up the closer he got and he only noticed it after he rounded the corner into a smaller hallway and harshly collided with someone.

It was on pure instinct that he screwed his eyes shut and recoiled back, tensing when all he could hear was a sharp gasp and the sound of glass breaking and a heavy tray colliding with the floor.

He opened his eyes again when he felt how wet his sleeve was and the smell of alcohol strong in his nose. Much like he had expected, he was looking at a shocked waiter and a large puddle on the floor with about a handful of shattered wineglasses.

‘’Fuck!,’’ the waiter exclaimed, looking fairy panicked as he stepped back from puddle of wine now laying between them, ‘’I’m so sorry sir,’’

Jisung internally cringed at being called sir but found himself distracted by the guy’s low voice, oddly comforting and maybe it made his heart stop for a split second.

To make matters worse, the guy was insanely handsome. He had jet-black hair that curled just beautifully, a sharp jawline, cat-like eyes which could surely drive someone insane and with his sleeves rolled up and showing fairly muscular forearms, he was just about as perfect as a guy could get.

Jisung noticed he was about a head taller and he had to admit that he was really attractive.

_Junghoon_, his little nameplate read.

The guy seemed to have caught him staring because when Jisung made eye-contact, his eyes narrowed slightly and the corners of his mouth tugged up.

Jisung managed to keep his face natural, quickly looking around him to see if it was safe to take a step backwards and away from the puddle as well. 

It wasn’t.

The floor around his feet was littered with shards of glass. Seemed like he was stuck until it was cleaned up.

‘’Don’t move!,’’ the guy suddenly rushed out before disappearing down the hallway, coming back less than a minute later with a dustpan and towel. 

Jisung recovered from the initial shock and quickly inspected his sleeve. There was now a darker patch running down but from the puddle in front of his feet, it seemed to be white wine so there really wasn’t any problem. Not that he would have cared if the suit ended up ruined. That way he’d never have to wear it again.

‘’It’s okay,’’ he replied, giving the guy a little smile, ‘’I wasn’t paying attention so it’s totally my fault,’’

The waiter kept apologizing as he made quick work of cleaning the floor, almost crawling around Jisung’s feet as he swept up the glass. 

Once the guy was done, he told Jisung to wait again as he speeded off again, leaving Jisung on his own in the little hallway.

He was really glad they were out of the public view because he was sure he would have died of embarrassment if people had witnessed him bumping into the waiter. As a dancer he was supposed to be gracious and all so maybe the incident did do a little damage to his ego.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it any longer when the guy returned with a couple of handtowels in hand.

‘’I don’t think this is going to help much, but I can at least try,’’ the waiter spoke, motioning for Jisung to hold out his arm.

The latter did and almost blushed when the guy tugged at his arm, forcing him to take a step closer.

‘’I don’t even like this suit anyways,’’ Jisung laughed as he watched the guy try his best to get rid of the wet patch, ‘’So this actually works out great. Would have been better if it was red wine though,’’

The waiter in front of him opened his mouth but promptly shut it again, clearly wanting to say something but stopping himself.

Jisung waited for a few seconds to see if the guy was going to say something but he turned his attention back to his sleeve.

‘’What?,’’

‘’I was just going to say it’s a shame you don’t like it because it looks great on you,’’ the waiter replied as he let go of his arm, smiling while doing so.

Jisung managed a nervous chuckle and slowly pulled his arm back before slipping the jacket off, looking at the stain up close.

‘’Junghoon,’’ the guy suddenly said.

Jisung looked up and tilted his head, not having heard the waiter clearly.

‘’My name,’’ the guy winked, extending his hand, ‘’Kang Junghoon,’’

Jisung shyly took the guy’s hand, ‘’Han Jisung,’’

‘’That’s a lovely name. It suits you,’’ Junghoon grinned, the fact that the guy let his fingertips trail down the back of Jisung’s hand as he let go not going unnoticed by the latter.

‘’I’m sorry to break it to you, but that was a really lame joke,’’ Jisung laughed despite his flustered state.

The guy seemed a bit taken aback and Jisung figured he hadn’t even noticed but then the confusion morphed into a silly grin and the guy shook his head, laughing as he pushed his hand through his hair.

‘’Pun not intended? And in fact I was trying to hit on you,’’

Jisung froze and felt his face heath up instantly, only worsening when Junghoon crossed his arms lazily and winked.

To be honest, Jisung’s wasn’t quite used to this. He had never had a random stranger so blatantly state they were trying to hit on him and as uncomfortable as it was, it was a nice change because normally Jisung was the one who had to try and make the first move. 

‘’Sorry,’’ Junghoon interrupted his flow of thought, ‘’Was that too direct?,’’

Jisung shook his head and managed to give the guy a little smile, ‘’No, you just caught me off guard,’’

Junghoon seemed to relax at that and almost beamed, ‘’Okay good because I really don’t want to mess up with a cutie like you,’’

Jisung almost chocked on air and was about to splutter something to the guy but he didn’t get the chance when suddenly a waitress popped up next to them, eyes practically on fire as she looked at Junghoon.

‘’The guest are complaining that their drinks are taking to long. Get moving!,’’

With a light swat at Junghoon’s head, she was stalked off again.

‘’Duty calls,’’ Junghoon sighed, ‘’How long will you still be here for?,’’

‘’Ehhm, at least an hour or so?,’’ Jisung managed to croak out, trying really hard not to cough.

The answer seemed to please the guy because his eyes almost lit up and his hand shot out, landing on Jisung’s shoulder.

‘’Great!,’’

With one last wink Junghoon was gone and Jisung remembered he had actually been on his way to the restroom and he hoped he hadn’t been gone for too long already.

He quickly slipped into the bathroom and made his way to the sink, groaning when he saw how flushed his face was in the mirror. He opened the tab and carefully splashed some water in his face in an attempt to cool his skin down and after a couple of times, the flushing was almost gone.

Before stepping out of the bathroom again, he decided that it was best to take the blazer off and roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt in an attempt to hide the fact that the whine had seeped through. With one last look and a sigh, he turned around and walked back to their table.

For a second he had forgotten the dreadful vibe but it came crashing right back in once he noticed his father’s sharp gaze on him as he got to his chair.

‘’Why aren’t you wearing your blazer? 

‘’Oh I bumped into the waiter and got white wine on it,’’ he mindlessly replied as he folded the blazer and hung the piece of clothing over the back of his chair before sitting down.

He realised his fuck-up when his mother promptly shot up from the chair.

‘’Let me speak to the manager here. Their personnel is clearly uncappable of doing their job properly,’’ she huffed, ‘’What happened to hiring respectable people? Nowadays they just pluck whatever delinquent off of the street,’’

‘’Mom, it’s no big deal,’’ Jisung rushed out, tugging at her arm to try to get her to sit back down, ‘’It was my fault for not paying attention. And it’s just white wine, it’s not going to stain,’’

His mother harshly yanked her arm away from Jisung, ‘’That’s not the point,’’

Jisung saw Mrs. Kim nodding in agreement from the other side of the table.

Suck up.

‘’Come on Boyoung, the boy is right,’’ Mr. Kim intercepted, ‘’I’m sure the cleaners will do the job just fine,’’

Bonus points for Mr. Kim.

He still didn’t like the man but whatever.

Fortunately, his mother deflated with a irritated huff and sat back down again, ‘’Well, if something like this happens again I will make sure that their boss knows about it,’’

‘’Okay Karen,’’ Jisung muttered under his breath as he took a quick glance around the restaurant, hoping to find something to distract him.

The rest of dinner was rather uneventful as Jisung tuned out the rest of the conversation, too focussed on Junghoon popping up every now and then as he served other people.

The guy seemed nice, was really charming and clearly somewhat interested in Jisung as well.

But he couldn’t see Junghoon as anything other than that random guy who had flirted with him right in front of the restroom.

It was a shame, really.

Why did he have to make things so difficult for himself? 

At some point the guy made eye-contact with him and shot him a quick wink before walking off again and just like that, Jisung felt his mood drop.

For some reason the guy reminded him of Minho and he quickly realised it was the eyes. Plus, when Jisung had first joined the company and Minho had returned from his hiatus soon after, Minho had had this habit of winking at him too.

He let out a sigh as his mind wandered off to this afternoon again.

Minho had seemed really sorry and thinking back on the guy’s desperate attempts to get Jisung to look at him during rehearsal today, he felt his chest get a bit tighter.

Even though it hurt, he wished the older had just screamed at him some more instead of apologizing for his behaviour. It would’ve made everything a lot easier.

But even after Jisung had been pissing him off and Minho had snapped at him – rightfully so -, the older had apologized first.

He felt himself dwindle even more and before he knew it, everything was suddenly too much. The chatting hit his ears like someone was holding a speaker next to his head and had the volume turned up to the max, the light of the chandeliers bouncing off the bulky crystals made him nauseous every time it entered his eyes, the food he had just eaten felt like a brick in his stomach and the previous pleasant temperature of the room was growing too hot.

But there was nothing he could do about it.

He just had to try his best to ignore it all and smile politely.

And after half an hour of twitching fingers and careful breathing, everyone’s plates were empty and Junghoon appeared to take the empty dishes away.

‘’I hope everything was according to your expectations?,’’ the guy asked, voice laced with fake sincerity and Jisung almost giggled when the guy wiggled his brows at him when the other adults weren’t looking.

‘’It was fine, thank you,’’ His father grumbled out before downing another glass of champagne.

Junghoon nodded and rounded the table to gather everything, stopping once he was next to Jisung.

‘’Again, my apologies for earlier,’’ the guy whispered in his ear as he leaned over Jisung’s shoulder to gather the cutlery, ‘’Feel free to send the bill for cleaning to this place or something,’’

Jisung tried not to flinch when Junghoon’s hand slid past his waist as he straightened up again.

‘’Thank you, but it’s really okay,’’ he replied, turning his head to Junghoon and giving him a gentle smile.

Then he felt fingers digging into his thigh and he snapped his head to his right, seeing his mother almost scowling at him and her eyes going from him to Junghoon and back.

Right.

‘’Well, would you like to order dessert?,’’ the guy spoke again, looking at them one by one, ‘’The chef’s special for today is a raspberry tiramisu. I personally recom-,’’ 

‘’No, I don’t want a raspberry tiramisu or any other dessert,’’ His mother shot back, startling Jisung by the hostility in her voice.

Junghoon didn’t seem all that bothered by it and gave a curd nod before turning to Jisung again.

‘’And the beautiful young mister?,’’ the guy asked, seemingly trying really hard to keep his face as stoic as possible.

Jisung would have blushed again if it weren’t for his mother exhaling loudly next to him and, well, he _had_ seen cheesecake on the menu when he had taken a little peek before ordering dinner.

Maybe his day could be saved. 

But just as he turned back to Junghoon and opened his mouth, the fingers dug into his thigh even more and it was painful enough to make him shut his mouth again. 

‘’I think Jisung doesn’t want dessert,’’ His mother intercepted as she turned to look at him, ‘’Can’t have you gain weight right before the show, right sweetheart?,’’

As if to emphasise her words she patted his thigh before prodding at his arm, something he had grown to hate because it made him feel oddly uncomfortable in his own skin.

Jisung felt his mood drop again and he nodded weakly, snapping his head away when his mother smiled at him.

The hands disappeared and he let out a little sigh. His mother didn’t seem to notice and turned to the Junghoon to order an espresso, following up by demanding a specific brand. 

It took another hour but then his parents called it quits, commenting on how the food could’ve been better even though they had left nothing on their plates and how the waiter had come across as pretty rude. Jisung could only roll his eyes as he perfectly knew why his mother disliked Junghoon – she was always keen and no doubt that she had picked up on the subtle flirting – but the guy had been far from rude if you asked Jisung.

If he had been in the other’s position, he was sure he would have snapped and walked out of the establishment all together.

As he got handed his coat from the employee at the wardrobe, he leaned to look past the wall to see if he saw Junghoon anywhere. Even if they didn’t really know each other, it felt rude to leave without even saying bye.

But he was nowhere to be seen and his parents were already done saying their goodbye’s to Mr. and Mrs. Kim, clearly waiting for Jisung to hurry the fuck up.

He let out a little sigh and slipped his coat on before following his parents out.

And he was about to walk out the door when he noticed his father folding the receipt, seeing that they had payed the exact amount without leaving a tip. 

Guilt gnawed away at his insides – more for the rather harsh remarks they had shot at Junghoon right after getting their coffee than the fact that they didn’t even have the decency to tip the guy - and he couldn’t just leave like this.

‘’Give me one sec,’’ Jisung spoke up, ‘’I think I left my phone at the table,’’

It was safely tucked away in his coat, but they didn’t need to know.

He didn’t wait for someone to respond and made his way back inside, spotting Junghoon at the table they had previously been seated at, folding the tablecloth with such precision that Jisung felt the need to point it out.

His feet carried him over as Junghoon seemed to be done.

‘’Hey,’’ he said as he grabbed Junghoon’s arm, effectively making him turn around, ‘’I’m really sorry for my parent’s behaviour earlier, they were really out of line,’’

Junghoon gently placed the tablecloth down and smiled at him, ‘’I was sad to see you were already gone without saying anything cutie,’’

Jisung chuckled shyly and hastily fished his wallet out of his pocket, pulling out a couple of bills and shoving it in the guy’s hands. 

‘’Your tip,’’ He explained when Junghoon looked at him, clearly confused, ‘’I noticed my parents didn’t leave one,’’

Junghoon took one bill and shoved the rest back to Jisung, ‘’I could say that it is fine, but I’m not going to do that and be so rude to flat out tell you that your parents seem like real assholes,’’

‘’You don’t even know half of it,’’ Jisung muttered as he shoved his wallet back in his pocket before looking back at Junghoon.

They locked eyes and Jisung would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel at least _something_, but it was nowhere near worthy of thinking about.

They stayed like that for a couple of seconds before Junghoon pulled out a little notepad and a pen from his back pocket, scribbling down a series of numbers before tearing the page off. The next thing Jisung knew, the guy took a step closer and slipped the piece of paper into the pocket of his coat, leaning next to his ear while doing so. 

‘’Call me sometime,’’ he whispered in his ear before leaning back again, gently giving Jisung’s cheek a little tap before disappearing with the folded tablecloth.

Jisung was almost certain that he wouldn’t call, but he appreciated the sentiment and he did feel a bit better about himself. 

The ride back home had been too silent and Jisung didn’t like it because silence never meant something good. 

And it was only after he had stepped into his room after a long hot shower - finally out of that awful suit and dressed in a pair of sweats and long-sleeved t-shit - that all hell broke loose. 

‘’Han Jisung!,’’ he heard his father bellow from downstairs, slightly muted by his closed bedroom door, ‘’I want you to come down to the living room, now!,’’

He froze for a second and his heart thumped uncomfortably in his chest, only getting worse as he pulled the towel from his head before hanging it over the chair in front of his desk.

His father never really yelled so he knew he was fucked.

As he made his way out of his room and down the big staircase, he tried to calm himself down and convince himself that this was just about Junghoon. He could handle that. He could talk his way out of it.

But as he walked into the living room and saw his parents glaring at him as soon as he walked in he knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

‘’What?,’’ he rushed out, his voice strained as he felt the anger radiating from his parents.

His mother motion for him to take a seat and he reluctantly lowered himself onto the couch.

There was a long minute of silence and by now Jisung was sure his heart was going to beat right out of his chest if it didn’t calm down anytime soon.

‘’You’re mother told me how she found you in the practise room with Lee Minho today,’’ His father growled, eyes narrowing.

Jisung felt his heart drop to his stomach and his eyes grew wide, the room around him strangely silent.

‘’You never told us that you’d be working with him,’’ His father continued, leaning forward in his chair as he leaned his arms on his knees.

Jisung felt his stomach twist uncomfortably because he knew where this would be going.

‘’And I think that is really concerning because we specifically asked you to tell us if something like that would happen,’’ his mother added, ‘’We would have been able to do something about it,’’

That was exactly why he hadn’t said anything about it.

Minho had worked hard to get the part and he was not going to let his mother pull her strings to get the older removed.

He had to admit that it wasn’t ideal, working with Minho, but he wasn’t wishing for his downfall so he sure as hell was going to do his best to keep his parents out of it.

‘’I didn’t think it was necessary,’’ he squeezed out, adding a shrug to look more casual about it, ‘’You guys are busy people and we’re just partners for the piece,’’

He knew he hadn’t sounded convincing at all but there was only so much he could do when he was starting to really freak out. 

‘’You better drill it in your head that Minho is the competition. He’s not someone you can be… _friends_ with,’’ his mother hissed, ‘’I swear, if I ever catch Lee talking to you outside of rehearsals I will do everything in my power to get him removed,’’

Jisung winced and hung his head, biting his lip as he nodded, ‘’I know. You don’t need to tell me all the time,’’ 

‘’Do you though, Jisung? Because I’m not sure you do,’’ His father growled, ‘’According to Mr. Park you guys have been getting quite chummy lately,’’

That was the point he could feel his hands staring to shake.

Oh no.

This was so not going well.

He shook his head frantically and tried to ignore how all the moisture in his mouth had suddenly vanished, ‘’I don’t know what you’re talking about,’’

His mother shot up from the couch and looked down on him, making Jisung suddenly feel incredible little, ‘’Don’t lie to us! We know you were never at Felix’s place last week,’’

‘’W-what?,’’

‘’I ran into Mr. Park today and as it turns out, you went with Lee Minho to his place!,’’ his mother screamed, planting her hands on her hips.

He was fucked.

‘’What were you doing there?,’’ his father followed up, voice dripping with withheld anger.

Jisung had reached the point where he felt his breathing getting shallow and burning his throat as it travelled to his lungs, making him struggle to get his words out even, ‘’N-nothing. I… It’s just that…,’’ 

He had slipped up.

Scratch that.

He had totally fucked up.

Months and months of doing so well and things actually getting more durable but in one moment of weakness, his whole resolve had crumbled and had thrown everything out of the window, leading to this exact situation.

He _knew_ he should have never even left home when he had woken up shivering that day. Nothing of this would have happened if he had just stayed at home. But no, his incredible work-ethic had bitten him in the ass.

And his parents knew and now he was back at zero, or minus twenty was more like it.

‘’I just slept there,’’ he managed to croak out, the anxiety spiking when he saw his father’s eyes almost on fire, ‘’Really!,’’

God

‘’Not in the same bed I hope?,’’

‘’Of course not!,’’

His father snorted and leaned back in the chair, a scowl on his face, ‘’You say that like it’s obvious,’’ 

Jisung’s body flashed hot and cold with panic, knowing he needed to get away or else he was going to have a full blown panic attack. 

‘’I-I promise!,’’ he replied, ‘’Really! I just slept on the couch and went back home after waking up!,’’

He was not going to tell his parents that that was actually a lie.

‘’Please don’t do anything. Please don’t kick him from his spot!,’’ he quickly added, feeling desperate enough to grab onto his mother’s skirt.

‘’Of course you don’t want me to and you’re lucky we’re so close to the opening night otherwise I wouldn’t hesitate for even a second. God, I bet you’re just having the time of your life now that you can spend almost the whole day rehearsing with him. Sure gives you a good excuse to hang out with him doesn’t it? We’re not dumb Jisung and you need to stop it. It’s disgusting,’’ His mother sneered as she pried his fingers away from him, clearly out to hurt him.

And it worked, like always.

Jisung shrunk in on himself, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow him whole.

It wasn’t disgusting.

_He_ wasn’t disgusting.

Right?

His parents continued to yell at him about how they were going to make sure Minho would never go near him again after the performance or how much they detested the guy or how he wasn’t worthy of being in such a prestige company and Jisung could only listen and try not to burst out in tears.

And despite his desperate attempts to keep himself from giving in to his burning lungs and tingling fingertips, he worried about Minho because Jisung had fucked up and now the older was dangerously close to getting cut if his mother decided to interfere.

He didn’t want Minho gone.

Because even if Minho hated him and was making Jisung’s life more difficult, he liked him.

Jisung liked Minho.

Very, very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jisung likes Minho.  
H.o.w.s.u.r.p.r.i.s.i.n.g.


End file.
